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eb DAS S ORR 
ADJUSTMENT 


BY 


S 
v 
THOMAS JACKSON WOOFTER, Jr., Pu.D. 


COMMISSION ON INTERRACIAL COOPERATION 





GINN AND COMPANY 


BOSTON + NEW YORK + CHICAGO - LONDON 
ATLANTA + DALLAS - COLUMBUS + SAN FRANCISCO 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY THOMAS JACKSON WOOFTER, JR. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


825.3 


The Aebeneam -Beess 


GINN AND COMPANY + PRO- 
PRIETORS * BOSTON: U.S.A. 


TO 


A DAUGHTER OF SLAVEHOLDERS, WHOSE TENDER 
SPIRIT EMBODIED THE TRUE SOUL OF THE OLD 
SOUTH, WHOSE SYMPATHY FOR THE WEAKER RACE 
SET A HIGH EXAMPLE, AND WHOSE READINESS TO 
EXTEND A HELPING HAND HAS BEEN AN INSPIRATION 


MY MOTHER 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/basisofracialadjOOwoof_0 


PRERAGE 


This book is primarily an effort to give the authentic 
facts concerning the different phases of Negro life in the 
United States today, with as little of the author’s own bias 
as possible. The University Race Commission, composed 
of representatives of the Southern state universities deeply 
interested in race relations, has found that “ there is a 
great need that the facts now available concerning the ad- 
vancement of the Negro race in education, in professional 
accomplishment, in economic independence, and in char- 
acter be studied by thoughtful students. This body of 
information would undoubtedly allay race antagonism and 
would serve as a foundation for tolerant attitude and intel- 
ligent action in every direction.”’ 

Thoughtful readers desiring to inform themselves on 
these matters have found it difficult, because there has 
been no one source to which they could go. This informa- 
tion has been so scattered that a disproportionate amount 
of time and effort has been necessary to get at the facts. In 
addition, many writers on the race question are so biased 
that they have unwittingly beclouded their facts with 
pages of special pleading or prejudice. 

Any constructive program for the betterment of race 
relations must be firmly rooted in facts or it will inevi- 
tably fail. It must be based on a knowledge of the vari- 
ous phases of Negro life, of the effect of the Negro’s 
presence on the various phases of community life, and of 


the constructive forces at work—the organizations and 
Vv 


vi THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


institutions which are successfully approaching the task 
of developing the Negro in harmony with American life 
and traditions. For this reason the material has been 
arranged so as to throw as much light as possible on the 
constructive activities and to help to answer the query 
What can we do to improve American life through better 
adjustment of our attitudes, our organizations, and our 
institutions to the Negro population, and what part can 
the Negro himself play in this adjustment ? 

The author has tried to avoid the expression “‘ Negro 
problem.” This is not a treatment of the Negro problem, 
but refers to the white man’s problems as well as those of 
the Negro. The adaptations which the two races must 
make are mutual. But, as the first chapter indicates, race 
relations today present more tasks than problems, and these 
tasks of democratic racial action are also mutual. It is to 
the mutual interest of the white man and the colored man, 
the North and the South, that they be well performed. 
The white man’s tasks are those of self-control in difficult 
situations and of adjusting American institutions so as to 
give the maximum service in aiding the belated race; the 
Negro’s tasks are those of self-development, of cultivating 
family life, industry, thrift, and moral stamina. 

Aside from the introductory chapters each chapter, after 
giving the background in some particular phase of Negro 
life, endeavors also to emphasize the most hopeful efforts 
to improve that phase. One force manifest in all these 
constructive efforts is the recent trend toward a more 
sympathetic and intelligent codperation between the two 
races in working for their mutual advancement and for 


the progress of their common country. 
THE AUTHOR 


—— 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. MUTUAL SERVICE 


Racial Adjustment a Task. Amalgamation or Cooperation? Inter- 
racial Morality and Dependence. Cooperation Increasing. The 
Nature of Racial Difference. Racial Differences help Specialization. 
Mutual Acquaintance, Mutual Confidence, Mutual Interests. 


CHAPTER II. LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION . 


New Negro Leadership. Strategic Importance of Leaders. Radical 
and Cooperative Leaders. What Leadership Demands. Responsi- 
bility of White Leaders for Aid. Interracial Committees. Respon- 
sibility of North and South. 


CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION OF 
NEGRO POPULATION . 


Rate of Increase. Effect of Numbers. reir ni as 


CHAPTER IV. HEALTH . 


Causes of Death. Recent Improvement. Constructive Rural 
Movements. State Departments of Health. Hospitals. Housing. 
Recreation. 


CHAPTER V. PRODUCING ON FARMS 


Interdependence of Southern Agriculture and Negro Labor. Extent 
and Disadvantages of Tenancy. Relations of Laborers, Tenants, 
and Owners. Growth of Negro Tenancy. Recent Drift from the 
Farm. Laxity in Tenant Agreement. Rural Credits. Peonage. 
Farm Demonstration Agents. 


CHAPTER VI. PRODUCING IN CITIES 


Domestic Service. Women in Industry. Unskilled Labor. Skilled 
Labor. The Negro and Organized Labor. Negro or Foreigner? 
Constructive Labor Policy. The Negro in Business. 

vii 


PAGE 


20 


38 


75 


97 


viii THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


CHAPTER VII. LAW AND ORDER . 


Negro Crime Rate. Causes of Crime. Length of Sentence. Unjust 
Arrest. Reformation. Injustices in the Court. Lynching. Com- 
bating the Mob. 


CHAPTER VIII. THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 
Negro Citizens. Negro Taxpayers. Negro Patriots. Negro Voters. 


CHAPTER IX. EDUCATION 


Native Mental Ability. Fears of Negro Education Unfoundelt 
Weakness of Public Schools. Constructive Agencies. State Higher 
Schools. Hampton and Tuskegee. Private and Denominational 
Schools. 


CHAPTER X. THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 


Relief. Orphans. Juvenile Delinquency. Insanity and Feeble- 
mindedness. Training for Social Work. Community Chests. 


CHAPTER XI. RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 


Power of the Negro Church. History of the Negro Church. 
Principal Denominations. Emotional Services. Factionalism. Re- 
lation to the Community. Sunday Schools. Contributions to Edu- 
cation. Influence for Thrift and Morality. Preachers. Church 
Cooperation. 


CHAPTER XII. RACE CONTACTS 


Helpful and Harmful Contacts. Segregation. Public Gee and 
the Press. Conclusion. 


APPENDIX: SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 
INDEX. . 


PAGE 
125 


149 


169 


199 


212. 


235 


249 
253 


Tie BAS om OT, 
RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


CHAPTER I 
MUTUAL SERVICE 


There is now a much more substantial agreement on 
many of the so-called Negro problems than there has been 
in the past. Doctor Edgar Gardner Murphy, writing in 
1904, said: ‘‘ Because no ten men have ever yet agreed as to 
what we shall all do, the Negro presents something more 
than a task; he presents a problem.” The lapse of twenty 
years has marked a genuinely encouraging tendency to 
dispel this disagreement. Not ten, but ten thousand men 
agree that the Negro must have equal justice in the courts, 
must receive training for life in the complex democracy of 
the United States, must be instructed and safeguarded in 
the preservation of health, and must receive a square deal in 
economic life. This substantial agreement is rapidly replac- 
ing the intellectual confusion which followed the Civil War. 


RAcIAL ADJUSTMENT A TASK 


Prediction of the future status of the Negro may still be 
looked upon as a problem in guessing, but, for present situa- 
tions, the Golden Rule offers a formula for constructive 
action which covers the ground as adequately to-day as it 

I 


2 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


did two thousand years ago, and seemingly will continue to 
be effective in meeting future situations as they arise. 
Snap predictions of the future course of race relations 
have a habit of going astray. Whatever the future may 
hold, it is probable that the grandchildren and the great- 
grandchildren of the present generation will be far wiser 
in their time than their forebears; and in this wisdom 
they will be able to take care of themselves if they can 
only inherit a tradition of justice and sound ethics. 

But individual agreement as to the justice of a policy does 
not immediately translate itself into community action. 
This is a process requiring material and moral resources. 
When it is agreed that the Negro needs schooling, there 
remains the task of supplying the funds, erecting the build- 
ings, and manning them with competent teachers. Simi- 
larly when any ideal of racial adjustment is agreed upon, 
there remains the task of embodying the ideal into an 
effective program of community development. While the 
problematical features of the Negro’s adjustment to life in 
American communities have diminished, the task of finding 
sufficient power and sufficient resources to accomplish the 
adjustment remains. 

As doubts concerning the wisdom of constructive efforts 
have been dispelled, many more people have shown willing- 
ness to put their shoulders to the wheel of the vehicle of race 
relations whose heavy load has been brought over a road 
choked with obstacles. The tasks are being approached in a 
more determined spirit as more leaders volunteer for duty 
and as more resources are made available. This task of 
racial adjustment of white and Negro relationships is the 
greatest of all racial tasks in area, as well as in numbers 


MUTUAL SERVICE 3 


involved. It is also the most intense, because the differences 
between white people and Negroes are greater than between 
any other American groups. 


AMALGAMATION OR COOPERATION ? 


It is often stated that when two races have lived side by 
side in the same area, under the same government, history 
has recorded only three results — extermination of the 
weaker, slavery, or amalgamation. Many people, there- 
fore, think that only these three are possible. They believe 
that Booker Washington’s ideal of the continuance of the 
white and colored races in the United States ‘‘as separate 
as the fingers, yet as united as the hand” is merely an 
impractical figure of speech. These people overlook the 
success of the Jews and Gypsies in maintaining racial integ- 
rity in many lands. No one affirms that the preservation 
of the racial integrity of the Jew is a denial of democratic 
principles. Democracy does not demand the fusion of races 
any more than it demands the fusion of religions. 

Nor does history offer as a precedent any nation including 
two groups so numerous and so widely divergent in physical 
characteristics and position in the cultural scale as the white 
man and the Negro in the United States. Again, at no time 
recorded in history has such a wealth of spiritual and intel- 
lectual effort been directed toward the cultivation of satis- 
factory race relations as to-day. These conditions may 
make it possible for the ten million Negroes and the hundred 
odd million white people to dwell peacefully together with- 
out the tremendous social cost of amalgamation, each mak- 
ing its own peculiar contribution to the development of 
the United States. 


4 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


INTERRACIAL MORALITY AND DEPENDENCE 


Communities in which white and colored people live side 
by side need codes of race morals and programs of interracial 
action which will preserve American traditions and institu- 
tions, and, at the same time, allow a square deal to the col- 
ored people, and give them full opportunity to develop their 
capabilities and to contribute their share to the well-being 
and progress of the country. When communities permit 
prejudice or violence to prevent the law from protecting the 
life of the humblest citizen and from guaranteeing the integ- 
rity of the poorest home, they are as guilty as the individual 
who fails to control the passions which lead to the murder of 
a weaker neighbor. The taxation of colored people to pay a 
bond issue which is spent entirely for the erection of white 
public schools is just as dishonest in a community as the 
activity of the highwayman who, with the aid of a bludgeon, 
converts your cash to his own uses. These are the types of 
action to be avoided by interracial codes. 

Aside from the dictates of morality, community self- 
interest demands a program of just and efficient interracial 
action. Experience has shown that in communities which 
neglect the legal protection of colored people, a class of white 
people is soon bred whose disrespect for the law passes 
beyond violence to colored people into acts which menace 
any weak citizen. By neglecting the education of colored 
people, lack of training is permitted to fasten the burdens of 
ignorance and inefficiency on all the people; by neglecting 
the living conditions and health of any of the citizens, dis- 
ease zones are fostered which persistently menace the health 
of the whole community. To arrange community affairs so 


MUTUAL SERVICE 5 


that these things will not occur because of the neglect of the 
Negro population is the challenging task of the hour for 
the rising generation. 


COOPERATION INCREASING 


The most encouraging recent development in dealing with 
this task is to be found in rapid progress of the tendency to 
codperate in working out interracial affairs, rather than to 
leave them to the outcome of bickering and struggle. The 
events of the Civil War and Reconstruction, with the in- 
evitable wave of suffering, passion, and bitterness which 
flooded in their wake, virtually enthroned intolerance, and 
rendered codperation between white and black and between 
North and South most difficult. But time, the great healer, 
has changed things so rapidly that intellectually honest per- 
sons can think together and, to an extent, work together for 
the improvement of many conditions affecting the two races. 

There are still obdurate individuals, with more zeal than 
wisdom, who think that they alone could direct this great 
task of racial adjustment. In the North this phenomenon 
occurs in the man who can see nothing good in the South’s 
dealings with the Negro, and who accepts any unverified 
rumor of wholesale slaughter of Negroes as typical of the 
attitude of all Southerners. In the South it occurs in the 
individual who thinks that it is not the ‘‘Yankee’s”’ busi- 
ness to concern himself with colored people, and in the man 
whose dignity would never suffer him to consult with 
Negroes as to any policy. Among the Negroes, obduracy is 
manifested in a few who distrust white people in the ag- 
gregate and are suspicious of any advice or service, lest 
it contain a concealed degradation. But, fortunately, the 


6 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


relative influence of all three of these classes is waning be- 
fore the growing power of codperative groups which are 
successfully at work. 

Many students of history get the impression that the rela- 
tions between nations and races have been based largely on 
greed and conquest, and overlook the fact that the years 
between wars have been the fruitful seasons blessed by the 
development of the special abilities of many peoples to pro- 
duce a variety of goods and services and exchange them 
peacefully with others, making bargains whereby both 
parties were benefited. Without such codperation no divi- 
sion of highly specialized labor or of peculiarly valuable 
cultural and moral services would have been possible. The 
time of each nation or race would have been consumed with 
struggle to produce and keep the bare necessities. Thus 
through coéperation, the ethical and moral efforts of man 
have ever been more fruitful and more progressive than his 
rapacious conquests. 

Full-flowered codperation is a system wherein mutual aid 
is freely and spontaneously given because it is mutually 
beneficial. This codperation is probably more perfectly 
illustrated in some of our humanized industrial plants than 
anywhere else. It is possible only through the exercise of 
intelligence, fairness, and the strictest morality; but even 
in its imperfect stages it enables men to divide and specialize 
the tasks of life so that not only is the effort to produce the 
necessities lessened, but the products are also improved. 
Men’s minds are released from fear and their energies re- 
leased from unnecessary competition and struggle, thereby 
creating a great surplus of time and energy which can be 
devoted to the adaptation of nature’s soil, minerals, and 


MUTUAL SERVICE 7 


climate to the comfort of man, and adaptation of man’s own 
organizations and institutions to progress. 

It is this latter road to full-fledged codperation which is 
now open to the white people and the colored people of the 
United States. Their relationships have always been gov- 
erned by principles of mutual aid in varying forms. Slavery 
has been tried and discarded by the white people themselves 
as inimical to their interests and inconsistent with their 
democracy. The paternalistic relationship, which charac- 
terized the plantation area until long after the Civil War, is 
passing as the large plantations fall into decay. As the 
Negro emerges from the plantation system and becomes an 
independent owner and renter of land and a city dweller with 
a measure of the white man’s store of learning, he approaches 
the place where he canstand side by side with his white neigh- 
bor and work for the harmonious progress of the two races. 

But there still remains the task of providing the ways and 
means for this codperation and of enabling the Negro to live 
up to this opportunity to fit into American life. It is the 
greatest opportunity which has ever been presented to so 
large a number of colored people. It carries with it also a 
grave responsibility on the part of the Negro to meet it 
soberly and earnestly and to do his full share in harmonizing 
the interests of the masses of his race with those of the whole 
nation and in leading these masses away from ignorance and 
inefficiency. 


THE NATURE OF RACIAL DIFFERENCES 


Much has been written by biologists and anthropologists 
concerning the physical differences between the races. The 
question of whether these differences indicate a superiority 


8 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


of certain races and inferiority of others has been widely 
agitated. One school declares for a strict racial equality, at 
least a potential equality ; while the other claims that racial 
differences are fixed and are transmitted from generation 
to generation, giving the possessor of superior qualities a 
perpetual superiority. 

It might clarify the mind of a student torn between the 
claims of these two schools to realize that these scientists 
do not deal with the whole scale of human difference. In- 
dividuals may differ physically, mentally, culturally, or 
morally. The biologist is primarily interested in physical 
difference, secondarily in mental difference, and hardly in- 
terested at all in cultural and moral differences. But these 
cultural and spiritual factors are by far the most powerful 
in determining human situations; for, in organized society, 
it is more important to know how men will react to a 
common danger or a common opportunity than it is to 
know the angle of their faces or the thickness of their lips. 
The transmission of the cultural traits from generation to 
generation does not follow the laws of biological heredity 
at all. They are transmitted through social institutions. 
While the difference in the nasal index or head shape of 
two groups may be relatively fixed by heredity, the dif- 
ferent reactions of an educated man and an ignorant man 
to a problem in compound interest or a public health © 
situation may be equalized by education. This forces us to 
conclude that in dealing with human situations our ethics 
is of more use than our biology. 

Even in regard to physical traits, however, biological 
research indicates that while individuals may differ widely, 
it is very difficult to classify rigidly the large groups of 


MUTUAL SERVICE 9 


individuals which are known as races. It is difficult to find 
any trait or group of traits which separates them widely. 
Even skin color is a deceptive criterion, for there are black 
Jews and blond Indians. Within the white race there are 
varying degrees of blondness and among the African peoples 
there are wide varieties of blackness and brownness. Similarly 
when such traits as height, brain weight, keenness of vision 
or acuteness of hearing are measured, it is found that while 
the averages of the races differ slightly, the individual mem- 
bers of each race vary widely about the average. Thus while 
the average height of Japanese is low, the tallest Japanese 
are considerably taller than the shortest white men. 

Even the physical criteria of race are not separate pigeon- 
holes into which individuals may be sorted and separated. 
They are slightly differing averages about which the individ- 
ual members of the races vary so widely that there is much 
overlapping between the groups. This overlapping is due 
first to the fact that the essential equipment of humanity 
has always been much the same, and further to the fact that 
to-day there is no such thing as a pure race. Humanity 
differentiated into racial stocks in different isolated areas, 
but later wars, migrations, and voyages of discovery have 
brought about contacts and intermingling which have 
tended to equalize the original differences. The Tartar 
migrations and the infiltration of European business and 
missions into the Orient have mixed the white and yellow 
people. The contacts of Egypt and Phcenicia with Africa 
and the Arab migrations have made the so-called black race 
a varied group, and the hundreds of migrations and wars 
in Europe have caused a crossing and recrossing that have 
resulted in a highly complex stock. 


10 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


It is also found that the differences in physical traits tend 
to change when races change their environment. Studies of 
the head form of immigrant children seem toindicate that the 
head form of the children tends to conform more closely to 
the average of the new environment than that of the parents. 

Finally, in regard to physical and mental traits it is well to 
remember that even though the inheritance of the individual 
may be roughly fixed by biological heredity, this inheritance 
is so complex and includes so many possible combinations 
that the individual in a favorable environment has the power 
to make a good product out of a relatively poor inheritance, 
or, on the other hand, to deteriorate into a parasite in spite 
of a relatively rich inheritance. 

The cultural differences between the world’s peoples as 
they exist to-day are probably more marked than the physi- 
cal and mental differences, but they are yielding more 
rapidly to the increasing ease of communication. In consid- 
ering these differences the outstanding fact is that they are 
rooted in the common heritage of humanity, — a control 
over nature, and an ability for social organization. No one 
race was the exclusive inventor ofits culture and hence none 
is its exclusive owner. 

Written language, which is the greatest aid to social effi- 
ciency, originated with forgotten peoples, and the modern 
alphabet, which renders the language of the white man so 
efficient, is a gift from the Phcenicians; while the numerical 
system which is the basis of the highly developed mathe- 
matical system of the white man is a product of the Arab 
mind; and the origins of the wheel and the lever, those 
fundamental parts of modern mechanics, are lost in the 
dimness of the dawn of history. 


MUTUAL SERVICE II 


To summarize: When the difference between men and 
the higher animals is considered, racial differences appear 
as slight differences in the average of human groups, about 
which individual members vary so widely that it is almost im- 
possible to predicate a fixed criterion of race. Furthermore, 
these averages and the amount of variation change from time 
to time and place to place. The cultural differences, which 
form the truly important divisions of mankind, are not the 
exclusive heritage of any one race, and can, to a large de- 
gree, be equalized by the processes of education. 

This evidence from the research of scientists is, therefore, 
not such as to warrant the assumption of an inborn, inerad- 
icable superiority of one race over all others. Nevertheless 
it seems to be a human trait to assume such superiority. 
There are many peoples who arrogate it to themselves. 
That certain individuals are superior to others is undeni- 
able, that certain groups contain a larger proportion of these 
superior individuals than others is probable, that certain 
peoples have been favored by environmental factors and 
cultural history is certain. But to assume that every mem- 
ber of an advantaged group is superior to every member of a 
disadvantaged group is a blind error, and the assumption 
that group differences are fixed and ineradicable for all time 
is equally as mistaken. It is desirable frankly to recognize 
the differences as they actually exist, but there is absolutely 
no ethical justification for the assumption that an advan- 
taged group has an inherent right to exploit and oppress, 
and the prejudice based upon such assumptions is the most 
vicious enemy to human peace and cooperation. 

The ethical attitude to assume toward the relation of 
races is, therefore, one which recognizes the worth and merit 


12 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


of individual personalities wherever they are found, and 
which fosters the development of a social system which will 
give all peoples the chance to assimilate the common culture 
of humanity and codperate for the common progress of man- 
kind. 


RaActAL DIFFERENCES HELP SPECIALIZATION 


Fortunately racial differences are no bar to codperation, 
but rather, when they are useful differences, they are actu- 
ally helpful. If all men were exactly alike, specialization 
would not be so effective as it is when special abilities can be 
developed and put to work for special ends. To argue, there- 
fore, that the Negro and the white man are very different, is 
a point in favor of, rather than against, their codperation. 
As long as their fundamental interests in a prosperous and 
progressive democracy are the same, their useful differences 
will enable them to render valuable mutual aid. 

Fifty years of freedom have not been nearly sufficient to 
discover just what the special aptitudes of the Negro are. 
There is reason to suppose, however, that he has ability to 
contribute to American life in music, art, and probably in 
the drama. His folk music is in a class by itself. Some of its 
pathos and some of its jazz have gained currency in Ameri- 
can tunes. The pictures of Tanner, the stories made famous 
by Uncle Remus, the poetry of Dunbar, the essays of Fisher, 
the perfect buffoonery of Bert Williams, the powerful emo- 
tional acting of Gilpin, and the songs of Roland Hayes, are 
all indicative of the promise of the future. 

It may be, also, that from his long and absorbing contact 
with natural forces, the Negro will have his own peculiar 
contribution to make to the development of the natural 


MUTUAL SERVICE 13 


sciences. Benjamin Banneker, an astronomer of note, is 
credited with having fashioned one of the first clocks made 
in America. George W. Carver to-day has gained inter- 
national reputation for his peculiar genius in the chemical 
analysis of the homely things close at hand, and their adap- 
tation to useful purposes. From the peanut, potato, pecan, 
and native clays of Alabama, he has produced a bewildering 
series of more than three hundred products. It is certain 
that the colored man has some special contribution to make 
to American life if he only bestirs himself to develop his own 
peculiar strong points and is aided by the white man to 
develop these capabilities and find places where they fit into 
the scheme of American progress. 


MutTuaL ACQUAINTANCE 


The essentials of effective codperation between the races 
are mutual acquaintance, mutual confidence, and mutual 
interests. Even in the South where the races are in closest 
contact, mutual acquaintance, or the possession by each 
race of knowledge as to the real facts concerning the other, is 
by no means widespread. Notwithstanding the assertion so 
often made in the South that ‘““We know all about the 
Negro,”’ it is safe to venture that only a very small propor- 
tion of the white people know the general, present-day con- 
ditions well. Tradition and prejudice, the ancient enemies 
of scientific knowledge, operate so powerfully in race ques- 
tions that the facts are often obscured. The slaveholders 
of the old South knew the Negroes well because they were 
in intimate contact with them, and because Negroes were, 
in those days, a comparatively simple group, almost totally 
illiterate, bound to the soil, and tutored by the owners 


14 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


themselves. To-day the ex-slaveholder, or the slaveholder’s 
son, knows the tradition as to what the Negro was sixty years 
ago, which is vastly different from what the Negro is to-day. 
Or perchance, if he farms with Negro labor, he knows the 
Negro farm hand of to-day, who is a vastly different man 
from the city dweller. The great class of Negro leaders, — 
business men, teachers, preachers, and doctors, — are alto- 
gether out of touch with the white people. Nine out of ten 
white men do not number a single one of these among their 
personal acquaintances. 

To quote from Dr. Edgar Gardner Murphy’s ‘‘ The Pres- 
ent South”: 

We may be tempted to say, therefore, that the kindlier 
conception of the old-time Negro resulted from the fact that 
the white world at its best was looking upon the Negro at his 
best; the harsher conception of the present Negro resulting 


_ from the fact that a white world which is not its best is looking 
upon the Negro at his worst. 


The first task of codperation is, therefore, the cultivation 
. of a mutual acquaintance based upon accurate knowledge. 
Each race needs to give more sober thought to the other 
and needs painstakingly to separate facts from dogma and 
demagoguery. This is a process of study and the cultiva- 
tion of friendly contacts. It is impossible to overstate the 
need for real facts as a basis for action. 

One thing which is essential to the appreciation of the 
facts concerning race relations is the dynamic viewpoint. 
A sense of the value of the time element is necessary. The 
civic and economic status of the Negro to-day is vastly 
different from what it was fifty years ago. As the civic and 
economic life of the race changes, race relations change. 


MUTUAL SERVICE 15 


No one can afford to dogmatize as to the present on the 
basis of the facts of the past. No one can afford to predict 
the future without a very thorough knowledge of the pres- 
ent-day trends. 

In addition to the dynamic viewpoint the constructive 
viewpoint is essential. —The programs which stimulate prog- 
ress must be based upon the constructive forces at work. It 
is necessary to know the organizations and institutions 
which are successfully approaching the task of improving 
race relations and the principles upon which their success is 
based. Such a dynamic and constructive analysis of the 
facts is fundamental to the mutual acquaintance which 
codperation demands. 

This kind of knowledge is most essential for the rising 
generation of colored people to-day, for it is the usual experi- 
ence of belated races that, when they begin to rise in the 
scale of knowledge and begin to comprehend the extent of 
their backwardness, they are engulfed in self-pity, which may 
embitter or may greatly discourage them. Public opinion 
among colored people in the United States is to-day in this 
critical stage. Sometimes the Negro ascribes to prejudice 
conditions which arise, at least partially, from his own back- 
wardness. This tendency is seen in the discontent with the 
tenant system which is as much the result of the ignorance 
and improvidence of farm labor as it is of abuses by unscru- 
pulous landlords. The Negro also sometimes blames racial 
injustice for conditions which are common to all races and 
classes occupying a similar economic or social status. Much 
of the hardship imposed on the Negro in court proceedings 
is shared by the friendless, moneyless white man. In other 
words, a proper perspective on the facts shows that many of 


16 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


the difficulties of the Negro are not racial but are inherent in 
the economic, political, and judicial systems of the United 
States or in the condition of the Negro, and can improve 
only as these improve. 

This is a process which takes time. Social progress is not 
the product of sudden changes but of a multitude of gradual 
improvements with an occasional revolutionary reorganiza- 
tion. It is therefore especially important for Negroes in 
their present state of mind to appreciate fully the time ele- 
ment in racial adjustment. The impartial student of the 
facts of Negro life in America will find much that is genu- 
inely encouraging and practically nothing to warrant a feel- 
ing of hopelessness. Analysis of the successful constructive 
movements will show that in the interest of getting results 
the colored people should guard against self-pity and undue 
impatience. 

MuvtTuUAL CONFIDENCE 

Mutual confidence can come only after fear and jealousy, 
which is a corollary of fear, have been dispelled. The most 
fallacious of fears arise from the feeling that what is the 
Negro’s gain must of necessity be the white man’s loss. As 
a matter of fact there is ample opportunity in America for 
both. Many are the out-worn fears of the past concerning 
the Negro. Former discussions of Negro education involved 
fears that it would lead to vanity in life; that it would spoil 
a good field hand by teaching books; and some even went 
so far as to predict that learning would only make the Negro 
an arch criminal. Those who are familiar with the records of 
the thousands of Negro graduates who are proving their 
worth to-day know the absurdity of these past fears. Of 
course, few of these graduates go back to work on the farm 


MUTUAL SERVICE 17 


for twenty dollars a month, but their good influence as com- 
munity leaders reflects back upon those who do remain. It 
would be almost impossible to find one whose efficiency has 
not been increased by training, and it is relatively rare that 
a trained Negro is accused of crime. 

Such groundless fears as these must go, for as long as there 
is fear there will be distrust and stifling oppression. The 
mutual confidence which must replace fear is to be based on 
the knowledge that each race is genuinely and sympatheti- 
cally interested in the other, and that both are deeply con- 
cerned with the progress of their common country. This 
mutual confidence cannot be conjured from the air by 
thought or will power. It comes through experience and 
can be cultivated by beginning to work together in a sym- 
pathetic and earnest spirit. In this respect the best way to 
learn codperation is to begin to codperate on simple, every- 


day matters. 
MUuTUAL INTERESTS 


The mutual interests essential to codperation between 
white and black in the United States are so obvious that 
they need not be dwelt upon. The two races living side by 
side are so intimately connected that it is difficult to find a 
point at which one may be affected without also affecting 
the other. All community activities — government, farm- 
ing, business, education, religion, health, and humane care 
of the unfortunates— are complicated by reason of the 
presence of two races, both of which need the same kind of 
community work. Thus the tasks of racial adjustment 
cross-section the tasks of democracy. The maximum ad- 
vancement for either race is conditioned by the advance- 
ment of the other. Their mutual interests are too vital to 


18 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


be left to debate and conflict. They are big enough to 
deserve approach in the great spirit of mutual aid. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY } 


Boaz, Franz. The Mind of Primitive Man, Chapters IX and X. 

BRYCE, JAMES. Relations of the Advanced to the Backward Races of 
Mankind. Romanes Lectures, 1902. 

Handbook of Interracial Codperation. Commission on Interracial 
Coéperation, Atlanta, Georgia. 

Murpuy, E. G.. The Present South, pp. 160-171. 

OrtpHAM, J. H. Christianity and the Race Problem, Chapters IV, 
V, and VI. 

WASHINGTON, B. T. Address before the Atlanta Exposition — Up 
from Slavery, Chapter XIV; The Story of the Negro, Chapter XV. 

WEATHERFORD, W. D. The Negro from Africa to America, Chapter XV. 

WHITE and JAcKSoNn. Poetry by American Negroes. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. Compare the relative importance, in the United States, of 
the following groups, considering in each case relative numbers 
and cultural differences: Indians, Mongolians, Mexicans, other 
foreign born, Negroes. Make this comparison for a single state. 


2. How do racial differences aid in the division of labor and 
the distribution of social burdens? 


1 These bibliographies at the end of each chapter are suggestive rather 
than exhaustive. No periodical matter is included, and, as much valuable 
material has appeared in magazines, the reader who desires to go exhaustively 
into a subject should consult the Periodical Guides. The aim has been to 
include the most suggestive reading for beginners, confining the references 
as far as possible to books which should be available in average college and 
city libraries. Two books not specifically mentioned but which are valuable 
as references for statistics on all topics are the Negro Year Book, pub- 
lished annually by Tuskegee Institute, and a special report of the United 
States Census Bureau entitled Negro Population in the United States, 
1790-1915. The latter will, of course, have to be supplemented by ref- 
erence to the 1920 census. An exhaustive bibliography is given in the Negro 
Year Book. 


MUTUAL SERVICE 19 


8. In what sense are the tasks of adjusting race relations 
“white man’s problems” rather than ‘‘ Negro problems’’? 


4. Study an anthology of Negro verse (“Poetry by American 
Negroes,” White and Jackson), a collection of folk songs (‘‘ Folk 
Songs and Folklore of the American Negro,’’ Odum), and the 
folk tales of Uncle Remus, and comment on the possibility of 
special contributions by Negroes to American culture. 


5. Compile from the Negro Year Book a list of Negro inventors 
and inventions. 


6. The historical background of race relations in the United 
States has centered around the slave trade, the extension of 
slavery, the abolition of slavery, and the adjustment of freed- 
men to democratic institutions. Has this been a background 
which would produce a rational attitude or an attitude based 
on controversy ? 


7. Outline the mutual interests of white people and Negroes 
in the United States. 


8. Some people say that the best way to treat a race problem 
is to leave it alone. If this policy is followed by the wise and 
unselfish people, are there other classes who will not leave it 
alone? What will be the effect? 


9. Has science demonstrated the inherent superiority or in- 
feriority of any one race? 


CHAPTER II 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 


Race relations are entering a new phase, as different from 
any past phase as freedom was from slavery. The most 
potent factor in the situation is the rising group of young 
leaders of both races. The Negro is emerging from the tute- 
lage of the white man and relying more and more on the 
advice and effort of his own leaders. Slavery was a school 
where the Negro learned under the direct tutelage of the 
white man. It was a hard school, but it taught him the 
fundamental lessons of work, thrift, and religion, and he 
learned them reasonably well. Reconstruction and the 
decades immediately following saw the Negro again com- 
pletely under white leadership. In this period, which has 
not yet passed from some backward communities, many of 
his leaders exploited him economically and politically. But 
while unscrupulous planters and carpet-bag politicians were 
exploiting him, another group of white people was_ build- 
ing and teaching schools, thereby laying the foundation 
for the new era in colored leadership, and hundreds of ex- 
slaveholders were aiding former slaves to purchase lands or 
small businesses, thereby laying the foundation for the 
economic prosperity of the present generation. Much prog- 
ress was made in these years, but it was made under the 
guidance of the white man. 

20 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION aI 


NEw NEGRO LEADERSHIP 


With the first decades of the twentieth century the new 
era commences. Every Southern state has built for Negroes 
a public school system, manned by Negro teachers and 
supervised by white state, county, and city boards of educa- 
tion. During the past school year some fourteen million 
dollars were spent from public funds for teachers’ salaries 
in these schools. The genius of Booker T. Washington has 
built at Tuskegee an educational institution unique in its 
adaptation to the training of a belated people. He has fur- 
nished a philosophy of interracial codperation and stimu- 
lated in the Negro a racial pride which is replacing the blind 
desire to imitate the white man. The denominations have 
built colleges for training leaders. A separate Negro press 
has developed more than four hundred weekly and monthly 
papers. The few ex-slaves who purchased land have been 
succeeded by over two hundred thousand farm owners and 
an equal number of renters operating more than twenty 
million acres of land. The small businesses have grown to 
fifty thousand in number, with an annual income of over a 
billion dollars. From dependency for religious instruction 
upon seats in the gallery of white churches, the Negro has 
developed a reliance upon large denominations of his own, 
with twenty thousand preachers, organized mission boards, 
and a system of denominational schools. Doctors, nurses, 
dentists, and lawyers have rapidly formed a colored profes- 
sional group. 

With this development, the Negro has passed, to a large 
degree, under the leadership of his own race. It is natural 
that there should be a diversity of leadership, because the 


22 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


colored group has become greatly diversified. Seventy 
years ago the population, with the exception of a few skilled 
tradesmen and domestic servants, was entirely confined to 
farming in the rural South. A third of the colored people 
now live in cities and a fifth are in the North. They 
traverse the whole range of American life as farmers, teach- 
ers, preachers, doctors, skilled tradesmen, merchants, edi- 
tors, bankers, and small-scale manufacturers. It is almost 
impossible to realize the deep significance of such funda- 
mental changes effected in such a short space of time. The 
leadership which the situation demands is important in 
the extreme. 


STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF LEADERS 


The colored leader is the keystone of the arch of race 
relations to-day. Upon his shoulders, in large degree, rests 
the responsibility not only for the well-being of his own 
group, but also for the peace and progress of large areas of 
the United States. A race or nation which has to be con- 
tinually looked after, a race for which some one else has to 
do the thinking, will never progress. It is only through the 
development of its own leadership that the Negro race can 
serve itself, — can exert its own efforts to progress, and can 
learn those lessons which are taught only in the strict school 
of experience. 

If the race leader is wise and codperative, working for 
such advances among his people as are harmonious with the 
development of the whole country, then he has a real con- 
tribution to make to the history of the United States, 
and indirectly to the history of race relations throughout 
the world. For other nations, especially those with black 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 23 


colonies, are beginning to turn to the United States to find 
out how the progress of our colored people has been attained 
with so little friction. On the other hand, if the colored 
leader is unwise, placing the advantage of the moment or 
selfish interests ahead of the long-time advantage, and advo- 
cating non-coéperation and agitation to gain his ends, then 
the bickering, unrest, litigation, and violence which arise 
from such a policy will inevitably impede the progress of 
racial codperation. 

The effectiveness of codperation rather than agitation 
when real results are desired, stands out in the following 
narrative : 

A young state farm demonstration agent was planning to 
hold a county-wide meeting of colored farmers for the pur- 
pose of preparing them to cope with the boll weevil and to 
improve their farming generally. Several outstanding white 
leaders favored his work and arranged for the meeting to be 
held in the county courthouse. Other leaders, who did not 
realize the importance of this work and who were faction- 
ally opposed to the backers of the movement, began to agi- 
tate against the use of the courthouse by Negroes. As some 
of them expressed it, Negroes should use the courthouse 
in that county only as defendants. The opposition worked 
on prejudice to such an extent that feeling ran rather high 
and the community was split into two factions. About two 
weeks before the meeting was to be held the colored demon- 
stration agent was waited on by the opposition and forced 
toleave town. Had he been an unwise leader, giving inflam- 
matory interviews to the papers and making fire-eating 
speeches to his people, he might have attracted marked 
attention to himself and very unfavorable comment upon 


24 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


that county. One of the editors of a near-by city daily 
wanted to write a scathing article about the incident but the 
Negro was too wise. He asked this editor to ignore the inci- 
dent and write an article praising his meeting, and com- 
mending the town for allowing it to be held in the court- 
house. The next step of the demonstration agent was to go 
to a prominent editor of another city daily which was circu- 
lated widely in the county, and secure his consent to speak 
at the meeting, with a published announcement of his deci- 
sion. The colored demonstrator then got the mayor of the 
county seat in which the meeting was to be held to appoint 
an entertainment committee for their prominent editor 
guest, and on this committee were placed the leaders of the 
opposition. They were informed that the out-of-town guest 
ought not to know of thesplit in the community but should be 
entertained with a hospitality which his prominence merited. 

So the day of the meeting dawned with the opposition 
silenced and a great crowd of country people, white and 
black, on hand to hear the speaking. Of course, when the 
program was outlined, when the farmers were urged to 
diversify their crops, to raise their own foodstuffs, to im- 
prove their homes, and to encourage their children by 
getting them into corn clubs, pig clubs, and canning clubs, 
even those who had been opposed to the meeting began to 
see the benefits. The out-of-town editor made a sweeping 
speech, congratulating the men of the county for their 
codperative spirit. The colored demonstrator accomplished 
his objective without making enemies, without embittering 
his own people, and without calling attention to an un- 
fortunate situation which to begin with was more a small- 
town factional squabble than a racial matter. 


—— —— 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 25 


A short time later the government funds ran low and this 
demonstrator communicated with his clubs, telling them 
that he would not be able to visit them as often as formerly 
on account of the lack of adequate traveling expenses. They 
pooled their resources to buy him a car and two of the men 
who had been among the most strenuous opponents of his 
courthouse meeting contributed the largest amounts toward 
the purchase and are now the most cordial friends of his 
work. He gained his objective by matching bitterness with 
diplomacy and prejudice with a demonstration of worth. 


RADICAL AND COOPERATIVE LEADERS 


With the rise of a special Negro leadership there is a 
danger that the new leaders, in their eagerness to press the 
immediate, special needs of their people, will lose sight of the 
fact that the interests of the ten million colored people in 
the United States are, in the long run, inextricably bound 
up with those of the hundred million white people. This 
seems already to be the case with a certain cult of Negro 
leaders, most of whom are editors and politicians. 

There are two distinct schools of colored leaders, one 
advocating hard work and gradual advance, the other insist- 
ent in its demands for equality, and constantly agitating and 
litigating for the immediate realization of its desires. The 
former is composed mainly of Southern teachers, preachers, 
and business men who are working among the masses of 
their own people. The latter comprises, for the most part, 
Northern editors and politicians. 

When the desires of these two schools of leaders are com- 
pared there is very little substantial difference. Both want 
the following things : 


26 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


1. Immediate cessation of interracial violence, especially 
lynching. 

2. Better educational facilities and just distribution of 
public school funds. 

3. Equality of economic opportunity — equal pay for the 
same work, opportunity to advance in the scale as ability is 
demonstrated, and such impartial enforcement of laws as 
will protect them from exploitation. 

4. Better living conditions, especially in paving, lighting, 
sanitation, and police protection in Negro neighborhoods. 

The sharp differences arise over politics and “social 
equality.”’ The school of Southern Negro leaders knows 
that Southern white people, particularly those in coun- 
ties where the colored population is in the majority, are not 
yet willing to countenance a second experiment in turning 
the reins of government over to the mass of colored people 
without any restriction. The bitter experiences of recon- 
struction are too fresh in their minds and pressure only 
tends to cement their determination on this point. As it is, 
however, there are increasing numbers who qualify and 
vote in the South. Some three thousand are registered in 
Atlanta, and their votes help decide such issues as bond 
elections and charter amendments. In Kentucky, Tennes- 
see, and in parts of Virginia and North Carolina their suf- 
frage is unrestricted. The white primary, of course, excludes 
them from choice of Democratic candidates, and the choice 
of these candidates is equivalent to election to office. 

That vague term “social equality”? includes anything 
from intermarriage to riding in the same railway coach. 
From a scientific viewpoint, anthropologists have been un- 
able to agree on the physical results of race mixture, but the 


OL oe 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 27 


sociologists agree that the social cost of the mixture of heter- 
ogeneous types is prohibitive. But this is a problem which 
will be taken care of by individual taste. To ninety-nine 
out of a hundred white people, and to a growing number of 
colored people, intermarriage is unthinkable, and relegated 
to the background. As for the “Jim Crow” ordinances, the 
agitating school want them abolished immediately, while 
the others endure them because they are the fiat of the 
ruling class. Still others feel that the Negro is really happier 
by himself, provided he receives equal accommodations for 
equal pay. They feel further that, as a matter of policy, 
in places where the mass of Negroes would come in con- 
tact with white people, much friction is averted by these 
customs. 

Although the platforms of these two factions are similar, 
their methods are very different, especially in respect to the 
time in which they hope to accomplish results. To any one 
who is thoroughly familiar with the backward condition of 
the Negro, the impatience of some of his leaders seems 
inevitable. On the other hand, the progress which he has 
been able to make in education, business, farming, and 
home ownership, despite these handicaps, has been phe- 
nomenal. It has not been equaled by any large group of 
black people anywhere else in the world. 

Between the two types of Negro leaders there is also a 
great psychological gulf. One believes in earning rights. 
The other feels that rights are inherent and believes in 
demanding them. The effect upon others of demanding 
rights is vastly different from that of earning them. The 
demand often antagonizes the man whose good will is neces- 
sary, while quiet worthiness is inevitably recognized. The 


28 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


wisest leaders of minority groups the world over have 
always pursued the conciliatory course. 

There will probably always be these two classes of Negro 
leaders, as there is usually a radical and a conservative wing 
of every cult. This is especially true since there is a large 
and growing Negro population in the North, where their 
community problems and relations to white people are quite 
different from those in the South. When the results ob- 
tained are measured, however, the score is easily in favor of 
the codperative worker. This is true because the active 
aid of the average American can be enlisted much more 
readily by a demonstration than by a bludgeon. In fact the 
agitating type of leader is rarely seen among the masses of 
his people in the South and never heard by Southern people, 
while leaders of the type of Doctor R. R. Moton draw large 
audiences and are favorably received even in the heart of 
the Black Belt. 


Wuat LEADERSHIP DEMANDS 


In almost every instance Negro leaders, whatever may be 
their philosophy of race relations, are self-made men. There 
is no third generation of riches and education in the group. 
Booker Washington and his successor, Robert R. Moton, 
were born in slavery, as was George W. Carver, the black 
wizard of chemistry, and many lesser local leaders still 
living. The others are either sons of slaves or of parents 
freed shortly before the Civil War. A realization of this 
lowly origin and struggle for education and position will aid 
in appreciating the weak and the strong points of these men. 
They have all the faults and all the virtues of other self- 
made men. Poise, unselfishness, broader vision of life, and 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 29 


adherence to standards are the traits which the training of 
future leaders should emphasize. 

Poise is difficult fora Negro leader of to-day, because of the 
delicacy of his position and the impatience of his following. 
It is easy for the agitator to lose patience completely and 
become too much of a ‘‘reformer” or too much of a nuisance. 
On the other hand, the codperative leader must watch his 
position carefully lest his white friends think he is trying to 
go too fast or his colored enemies attack him for going too 
slowly. With the amount of jealousy which exists between 
the leaders, even a fancied ground for criticism is often 
enough to bring on an avalanche of vituperation. 

Selfishness is not predominant among Negro leaders, but 
self-advertisement becomes an obsession with some, espe- 
cially if they are in positions where they are compelled to 
raise money for their cause. In these cases their agitation 
and publicity are designed to attract attention to them- 
selves rather than to forward the interests of their race. 
Occasionally there arises one who is wholly selfish, for whom 
the weakness and gullibility of the mass of colored people 
is too great a temptation. These demagogues are usually 
orators, skilled at playing upon the ills of their people. 
Like the patent medicine fakir who describes symptoms 
until every one in the audience is in fear, of death and is 
willing to pay for any remedy that may be handed out, they 
describe injustices until all their hearers feel aggrieved and 
are willing to join or subscribe to anything that offers a 
remote possibility of aid. One leader of this type has just 
been convicted by a United States court, after having col- 
lected several million dollars from his deluded victims and 
having almost caused international complications by his 


30 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


violent agitation against white nations, especially colonial 
nations. Many of the Negro politicians ‘have imitated their 
white colleagues by adopting these tactics. 

Broader vision of life and adherence to higher standards 
are both products of training in its fullest sense, not only 
that training which comes in schools, but also that which 
comes from ripe experience. It was noted in the beginning 
that a new generation of Negro college graduates is assum- 
ing the reins. It must not be thought, however, that these 
are all as fully trained as white college graduates. The 
majority of their schools are still weak in, teaching force and 
equipment and almost wholly lacking in the specialization 
necessary for leadership in the professions. 

The medical profession illustrates this perfectly. There 
are only two colored medical schools. Of the graduates of 
these two schools very few have the requisite hospital expe- 
rience for a superior rating. In other lines the deficiency in 
training facilities isas marked. The average colored teacher 
has considerably less than a full grammar school training 
and very little special training for teaching. The output of 
the normal schools is not nearly sufficient to supply the new 
teachers needed each year. For recruiting a body of twenty 
thousand ministers the output of theological schools is only 
about two hundred and fifty a year, and the courses in these 
schools are rather narrow. The future Negro leadership is 
therefore hampered by the tardy development of these 
training facilities. 


RESPONSIBILITY OF WHITE LEADERS 


The progress of the colored population in harmony with 
the progress of the nation brings leadership responsibilities 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 31 


to the white people also. The advice and guidance which 
colored leaders need, the aid in developing facilities for 
training real leaders, and the philanthropy needed for build- 
ing institutions, must come largely from white men. The 
white man must extend a helping and a guiding hand to 
assist the colored man to his goal of progress in harmony 
with American life. Negroes generally recognize their 
dependence in this respect upon the members of the major- 
ity race. But the substitution of the present Negro leader- 
ship for the tutelage of the white slave owner has caused a 
natural chasm between the outstanding members of the two 
races. Asthe Negro was released from slavery, the more able 
and energetic members of the race entered business and the 
professions serving their own people, thus cutting them- 
selves off from the intimate view of the white people. As 
they rose in the scale of progress they passed above the 
observation of white fellow citizens. This left the two races 
in the position of two pyramids, in contact at the base but 
widely separated at the peak. 


INTERRACIAL COMMITTEES 


Realization of this situation led, in 1919, to the organiza- 
tion of the Commission on Interracial Codperation, a move- 
ment of Southern white and colored people, which has 
spread through 800 Southern counties. This movement is 
primarily an effort to bring the leaders of the two races 
back into contact, — to enable them to codperate in com- 
munity affairs. 

The inaugurators of this movement recognized the mutual 
dependence of the two races and knew that, in any commu- 
nity, efficiency depends upon the education of all the people ; 


a2 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


that violence, whether toward white or black men, endan- 
gers all law; that health can be attained only by attacking 
disease wherever it shows itself; and that bad moral condi- 
tions are a menace to the community, whether they are in 
the colored or in the white neighborhood. They also recog- 
nize that the correction of these conditions is a task great 
enough to demand a combination of the best efforts of both 
races. County and state interracial committees are endeav- 
oring to supply this harmonious combination of leadership 
for good work in the community. 

The fact that these committees are organized by counties 
is one of the strong points of the movement, for the county 
committee is on the ground to deal intimately with local 
situations; and after all, the great tasks of adjusting race 
relations are nothing more than the sum total of the tasks 
involved in numbers of local communities. Each commu- 
nity has its slightly variant local situation to meet and each, 
to an extent, is human in that it would prefer to deal with 
its own affairs rather than be lectured to by an outside 
agency. This attitude applies especially to questions of 
race relations, because accusations and counter-accusations 
in the past have been so acrimonious that there has grown 
up in each community a tender sensitiveness, a psychology 
of self-defense which often leads to the misunderstanding of 
well-meaning efforts of outsiders to aid. Thus the Commis- 
sion on Interracial Coéperation has recognized the strategic 
importance of the local leaders who are on the job in a great 
number of places. These, rather than the general national 
personalities, are the primary factors in racial adjustment. 

The significance of local effort is emphasized in the 
December 1923 message of President Coolidge: ‘“‘ But it 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 33 


is well to recognize that these difficulties are to a large 
extent local problems which must be worked out by the 
mutual forbearance and human kindness of each commu- 
nity. Such a method gives much more promise of a real 
remedy than outside interference.” 

The Commission is a southwide body meeting once a year 
and dealing with national organizations and movements 
relating to colored people. Through contacts with editors it 
has been useful in molding public opinion and it is building 
a literature of codperation ; through work in colleges it has 
promoted study and research ; through contacts with denom- 
inational boardsit has quickened the interest of the churches ; 
and through special women’s work it has reached numbers 
of women’s organizations with a constructive program. 

The concrete situations are, however, attacked by the 
state and local committees. State committees of South 
Carolina and Georgia have codperated with Methodist 
Home Mission societies in placing Negro nurses in the 
state departments of health, and state committees in Ten- 
nessee and South Carolina have aided in the establishment 
of girls’ reform schools. The Georgia State Committee is 
interested in a similar project. In Tennessee such a senti- 
ment was worked up that members of the white women’s 
clubs appeared before the legislature in behalf of the bill. 
State legislators have been approached regarding increased 
appropriations for Negro institutions, and state railroad 
commissions influenced to work for better accommodations 
for Negro passengers. Legal aid work has been fostered by 
several committees. 

The following specific accomplishments of local com- 
mittees illustrate their value to their communities: 


34 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


ATLANTA, GEORGIA. Securing a million and a quarter of bond 
money for colored schools; securing park from city and county ; 
codperation in adjustment of Negroes to community chest; 
codperation in opening new day nursery. 

AucustA, GEorGIA. Participation in community survey out 
of which grew legal aid work. 

SAVANNAH, GEoRGIA. Securing girls’ detention home, tuber- 
culosis and children’s clinic, day nursery, and improvement at 
hospital. 

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE. Improvement of living condi- 
tions. Addition of library to high school. 

DAYTONA, FLORIDA. Community nurse. 

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. Codperation in establishing legal 
aid bureau. 

NEw ORLEANS, LovuIsiIaNA. Codperation with local civic 
league. 

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. Codperation with community chest, 
alleviation of friction growing out of political campaign. 

In numbers of places violence has been averted by prompt 
action of these committees in a crisis, and in numbers of places 
committees have kept the needs of the Negro schools before 
the boards of education until they have been improved. 


This partial list gives an idea of the diversity of com- 
munity needs which these committees meet. In fact each 
committee is left to fix its own program in accordance with 
the most pressing local needs as they are outlined by the 
colored leaders. 

The meetings of these committees provide a forum, a 
platform from which the races can speak soberly and sym- 
pathetically with each other. It is bad for any community 
that there should be two distinct classes, each ignorant 
of the thoughts and purposes of the other. Under these 
circumstances slight but very irritating grievances often arise 


LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 35 


through thoughtlessness, grievances which could have been 
removed instantly had they been made known. 

While these committees are in position to accomplish 
good, concrete results for the community, their by-product 
in good will is fully as valuable as their principal product in 
good works. The mere meeting together for common bene- 
fit lays the foundation for still more effective codperation. 
It generates mutual confidence and creates a sphere of good 
will which harmonizes the lives of the two races as nothing 
else could possibly do. 

In the words of the prominent Negro author and editor, 
Isaac Fisher, 


It (the Commission) has already provided points of contact 
between the better classes of the two races in many places; it 
has already set sentinels of both races to watch for signs of dis- 
order and causes of friction; it has already taken the lead, again 
and again, as our records show, in preventing violence in certain 
places; it has repeatedly called the attention of officials to 
unfair attitudes toward Negroes in several places, and with suc- 
cessful results; without publicity, it is courageously serving 
notice on souls here and there, who do not have the vision of 
good will and fair play, that the voices of Christian white people 
will not be silent any longer where inequitable practices obtain. 
It has not revolutionized racial conditions here, but it has 
established the basis of race adjustment by providing for the 
codperation and good will which spring out of perfect under- 
standing. There is quite a long distance to go yet; but we 
are certainly headed in the right direction. 


This responsibility for codperative leadership is not en- 
tirely confined to the South. In resorting to arms to setile 
the issues of the Civil War the nation assumed responsibility 
tor the Negro. Emancipation destroyed a great part of the 


36 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


wealth of the South and left the Negro on the hands of 
an impoverished section. The national government soon 
withdrew its aid and thus the South was left alone with its 
problems. In this situation Northern philanthropy came 
to the rescue and has played a leading part in the establish- 
ment of colored colleges, high schools, and industrial schools. 
The time has not yet come for the withdrawal of this interest 
in the tasks which belong largely to all sections of the nation. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BRAWLEY, Benj. A Short History of the American Negro, Chapter 
XV. 

DuBots, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. 

Hart, A. B. The Southern South, Chapter X XVII. 

HASKIN, ESTELLE. Handicapped Winners. 

HAyneES, ELizABETH. Unsung Heroes. 

Haynes, Georce. The Trend of the Races, pp. 14-17; 69-79; 91-98. 

KeErtIin, R.T. The Voiceof the Negro, Introduction, Chapters I and II. 

Literature of Commission on Interracial Codperation. 

Morton, R. R. Finding a Way Out. 

Murray, E. G. The Present South, pp. 171-176. 

Bulletins Nos. 38-39 of the United States Bureau of Education, rg16. 
““Negro Education in the United States,” pp. 3-7. 

Puiturrs, U. B. Plantation and Frontier Documents, Introduction. 

WASHINGTON, B. T. and DuBois, W. E. B. The Negro in the South. 

WEATHERFORD, W.D. The Negro from Africa to America, Chapter XVI. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. Consult Negro Year Book for items showing Negro 
progress in the past fifty years. Note signs of progress in a 
particular community. 


2. Study Negro periodicals (Chicago Defender, The Negro 
World, The Crisis, The Messenger, Atlanta Independent, Okla- 
homa Black Dispatch, New York Age, etc.) and see Kerlin, 








LEADING TO RACIAL COOPERATION 37 


“The Voice of the Negro,” for signs of radicalism, impatience, 
and bitterness, or codperation among Negro leaders. 


8. Consult Census, Negro Year Book, and Negro Education 
in the United States for estimate as to the number and training 
of the leadership classes. 


4. What is the relative value of a movement or institution 
for Negroes directed by white people and a movement or 
institution for Negroes directed by Negroes? What are the 
advantages of mixed directorates? Answer on the basis of the 
work of an organization which you can observe. 


5. If there is an interracial committee in a community with 
which you are familiar, study its origin and development and 
the factors which make for its success or failure. 


6. What general effect have political leaders had on race 
adjustment ? 


7. What classes of the two races are in closest contact? 
From the characteristics of these classes would you say that 
these contacts are helpful or harmful ? 


8. What local situations could be best handled by inter- 
racial committees? (See literature of Commission on Inter- 
racial Codperation.) 


9. Is the Negro’s natural disposition patient and kindly or 
impatient and bitter? What is responsible for the growing 
tendency in the latter direction? How can it be remedied? 


10. Discuss the characteristics of the two types of Negro 
leaders. 


CHAPTER III 


GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO 
POPULATION 


The growth and spread of the Negroes in the United 
States is in itself a phenomenon in social physics which 
is almost unprecedented. Beginning three hundred years 
ago with the handful of Africans who were landed at James- 
town, the population has increased to ten and a half million. 
Historians estimate that at most only about 350,000 Afri- 
cans were brought to this country as slaves before 1808; 
yet some five million were emancipated by the Civil War. 
The difference between this number and the 350,000 im- 
ported shows how the Negro race thrived even in slavery, 
their natural increase in two hundred years amounting to 
four and a half million. The sixty years of freedom have 
brought another increase of over five million, bringing 
the total in 1920 to 10,463,000. Aside from native- 
born white men, they constitute the largest group in the 
United States and include about a tenth of the total 
population of the country. 


RATE OF INCREASE 


At different times two extreme opinions have been held 
as to the rate of increase of the Negro population. For 
a while alarmists pointed to the great fecundity of the 

38 





GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 39 


colored people, and predicted that within a short time the 
country would be overrun with Negroes. In 1883 E. G. 
Gilliam estimated that by 1980 there would be 200,000,000 
Negroes in the United States. A short time after the 
abolition of slavery, however, the operation of the more 
normal forces which tend toward equilibrium in the popu- 
lation threw confusion into the ranks of these prophets 
by sharply slackening the rate of Negro increase. The 
pendulum of conjecture then swung to the other extreme. 
Predictions were freely made that the Negro was dying 
out and would shortly become a vanishing factor in the 
life of the nation. 

The facts, however, do not bear out either of these 
extreme views. Indeed, the forces acting upon the Negro 
population are so varied and the resultant changes so rapid 
that predictions are very unsafe. The census figures do 
show, however, that the colored population is not increas- 
ing as rapidly as it did in the past. From 1870 to 1880 the 
increase was 22 per cent; from 1880 to 1890, 18 per cent; 
from 1890 to 1900, 14 per cent; from 1900 to IgIo, I1 per 
cent; and from r1g1o to 1920, 6 per cent. Thus the com- 
plexities of freedom have brought a people which originally 
had all the fecundity of a tropical race to the point where 
their increase is almost as sluggish as that of the French, 
whose birth and death rates barely balance. 

After the Census of 1900, Wilcox, a very careful esti- 
mator, figured that if the tendencies between 1870 and 1900 
continued to operate, the Negro population in the year 
2000 would not be greater than twenty-five million. He 
predicted the following approximate rates between 1900 
and 2000: 


40 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Per CENT INCREASE IN 


PERIOD NEGRO POPULATION 
TOOO=IO 20 sales bia e VU WNGS ie A ote eg sd Ml eco 
TOZO-TOAO iio SNe eek MEMRAM a wh O Gg) ate a 
EQAOHIQOO eee a CON Une aa ns rat ae oat x |" ranean 
TOGORLOSO | Ase enleh ey | Cree ug cee eta ean 
TOSO-2O00 1 Sy ire WIS UNI! Co nam RAEN iA i AN 


The censuses of 1910 and 1920, however, fell so far short 
of this estimate that Wilcox has recently revised his pre- 
diction downward. Instead of his expected rate of 30 
per cent between 1900 and 1920, there was an increase of 
only about 17 per cent. 

At any rate a large Negro group will be here for several 
centuries. Even an increase of one per cent every ten 
years would aggregate eleven and a quarter million Negroes 
by the end of the century. On the other hand, if it ever 
happens that deaths begin to exceed births to such an 
extent that the population decreases by two per cent every 
ten years, there will still remain, two hundred years hence, 
a colored population of about seven million; and if this 
decrease were maintained, a thousand years hence the race 
would still be more numerous than are the Indians to-day. 
In the meantime the persistent question of what to do to 
adjust the relationships of those who remain would con- 
tinue to be vexing. That, rather than attempts to predict 
the future, is the pressing problem of to-day. 

The birth rate among Negroes is evidently subject to 
fluctuations from a number of causes. This rate has 
undoubtedly decreased rapidly, and it is this decrease in 
birth rate rather than an increase in death rate which causes 
the slower increase of the Negro population. In fact, the 
following chapter shows that the death rate is declining. 





GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 41 


One of the influential causes of the lower birth rate is the 
gradual rise in the standard of living. This postpones 
marriage until a later age than formerly and consequently 
reduces the number of children born. Nevertheless the 
marriage age is still very much lower among colored women 
than among white women, for the census indicates that 
30 per cent of the white women over 15 are single as against 
only 24.1 per cent of the colored women over 15. In the 
city the birth rate is much lower than in the country, the 
rates per 1000 in 1920 being: urban 24.0, rural 28.9. 
The migration cityward, therefore, is another factor in 
the decreasing birth rate. The high incidence of venereal 
disease also serves as a check upon births, and it is also 
possible that conscious birth control has decreased the 
number of children to some extent. All these factors com- 
bine to reduce the number of Negro children born and to 
slacken the rate of the increase of the Negro population. 


EFFECT OF NUMBERS 


The present distribution of Negroes is one of the potent 
factors in determining race relations. In certain sections 
the sheer weight of numbers renders the task of racial 
adjustment far more difficult than in others. Mississippi 
and South Carolina, with over 50 per cent of their total 
population colored, present one set of situations, while the 
New England and Middle Western states, with less than 
10 per cent, present a wholly different set. The situation 
in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and eastern Arkansas 
is closely allied to that in Mississippi and South Caro- 
lina. North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Ken- 
tucky, and Texas, where the proportion of Negroes ranges 


42 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


from a fifth to a third of the total population, present fewer 
difficulties. 

The South has been looked on as “‘solid”’ in its views on 
the color question, but these variations of state situations 
are further complicated by a great variety of county situa- 
tions. The “‘Black Belt” area, where Negroes are in the 
majority, extends from the tidewater of Virginia, down 
the coast of North Carolina, and spreads to include. nearly 
all but the mountain counties of South Carolina. It then 
arches to the westward through Central Georgia, Alabama, 
and Mississippi, where it again expands north and south 
to include all the Delta counties along both sides of the 
Mississippi River in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. 
A few detached ‘‘ black” counties are to be found in Florida, 
Tennessee, and eastern Texas. In some of the Black Belt 
counties there are as many as ten Negroes to one white 
man. In such a county the attitude toward law and order, 
government, schools, health, and all phases of life is tinged 
by the color question to a far greater extent than in some 
of the counties of the same states where the ratio is 
reversed. 

It therefore behooves the man who would deal intelli- 
gently with a local situation to know first the population 
conditions, the rate of increase, and the proportion of the 
two races. These are powerful influences upon the every- 
day dealings between the two races. 


MULATTOES 


The presence of a considerable number of people of mixed 
white and colored blood presents one of the genuine prob- 
lems remaining in race relations. There is every evidence, 


ee ee ee Tee ee 


—— — 


| 





GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 43 


however, that direct infusion of white blood through inter- 
marriage or illegitimate relationships is decidedly on the 
decrease. This evidence comes not only from competent 
observers of social conditions but also from census figures. 
Observers of social conditions are unanimous in the state- 
ment that miscegenation is by no means as common at 
present as before the Civil War, because the two races 
are not in such intimate contact and because public opin- 
ion in both races is decidedly more opposed to interracial 
immorality. 

The census figures dividing blacks and mulattoes are not 
accurate, but such as they are, they show the following 
slight increases in the proportion of mulattoes in the Negro 
population, up to 1910. But from 1910 to 1920 both the 
actual number and the percentage of mulattoes decreased. 


1860 1890 1910 1920 
Percentage of mulattoes 


in Negro population Fee Th 20.9 15.9 
Total numbers mulattoes 588,363 1,132,060 2,151,686 1,660,554 

A slight percentage increase would be expected even if 
there were no direct infusion of white blood, since a mulatto 
child may be born to two mulatto parents or to one mulatto 
and one black parent, while a black child is born only to 
two black parents. On the face of the figures it is probable 
not only that the direct infusion of white blood has prac- 
tically ceased, but also that the mulatto families are not 
as prolific as pure black families. Whether this is due 
to hereditary tendencies or different conditions of social 
environment has not been determined. Since the slight 
increase in the mulatto population is due to unions of black 
with mulatto and of mulatto with mulatto, it is probable 


44 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


that the proportion of mulattoes with more than half white 
blood is rapidly diminishing, while the proportion with less 
than half white blood is increasing. 


MIGRATION 


The curtailment of European immigration has left the 
Negro on the Southern farm as the largest available group 
of unskilled laborers in the United States, and this supply 
is slipping through the fingers of the Southern farmer be- 
cause the latter is unable to compete with the manufacturer, 
either in wages paid or living conditions furnished. Each 
year after the crops are gathered and before the landlord 
has struck a new bargain with wage hands and tenants, 
many leave the farm and move cityward, putting behind 
them all that they have known to seek the Eldorado of 
industry. 

When the pioneers arrive in the city they write back glow- 
ing accounts of the higher wages and more attractive life, 
thus drawing their friends after them. The movement then 
becomes an epidemic, a fad, and assumes large proportions. 
A story goes the rounds of one Southern town that an old 
Negro drove up to the station in an ox cart, with $37 
in cash, saying that he was going to Philadelphia where 
colored people were as good as white folks and that he had 
brought his wagon along so he could ride when he got 
there. Many of the migrants do not have a much clearer 
idea of where they are going or why. 

The Georgia State College of Agriculture estimates that 
about 100,000 people left Georgia farms from January 1 
to May 1, 1923. Eighty thousand of these were Negroes. 
At times the “Jim Crow” cars of northbound trains are 





GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 45 


packed to suffocation and the railway stations at Atlanta, 
Memphis, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadel- 
phia, and other distributing centers present strange sights 
of swarms of black immigrants, many of them clothed 
almost as they left the cotton field, with all their earthly 
possessions in one bundle. 

There is a pathetic tinge to this picture of simple wan- 
derers, many of whom really loved their homes with a kind 
of “‘with all their faults I love them still” affection. Yet 
they have been forced away by the combined action of a 
faulty economic system and the social ills that attend it. 
These have ground them as relentlessly as the upper and 
the nether millstones. 

It is well to bear in mind that this movement is no new 
thing but has been in process ever since the slaves were 
emancipated. Immediately after the Civil War it took the 
form of a shift westward. This was so marked that a gov- 
ernment investigation was instituted. A slow movement 
northward has also been in progress for several decades. 
It is only since 1910, however, that the movement has 
become spectacular. The boll weevil’s inroads on cotton 
and the war conditions in industry have intensified it 
greatly. 

The striking increase in Northern cities since 1910 has 
led many to look on the migration largely as a movement 
from South to North. This is only a part of it. Fundamen- 
tally it isa movement from the farms of the cotton belt to 
the cities, and the rapidly growing Southern cities receive 
as many migrants as Northern cities. 

A picture of the plantation system will help in under- 
standing the inability of Southern farmers to compete with 


46 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


industries for labor. The one-crop system has always 
required a surplus of labor. From twenty-five to thirty 
acres in cotton and corn are usually cultivated by one 
man or family, but when a large proportion of this is in 
cotton, a surplus of labor is necessary to “‘chop” or thin 
the crop in the spring and to pick it in the fall. Thus the 
average number of days worked by the rural laborer in 
the cotton belt has been low. This is a wasteful procedure 
and has kept the level of wages low. The result has been 
that for the past fifty years there has been a gradual move- 
ment toward the higher wages of the city even in normal 
times. 

But the years just before, during, and just after the Euro- 
pean war were anything but normal in Southern agriculture. 
After a brief period of prodigal prosperity and equally as 
prodigal spending, the post-war depression, coupled with 
the ravages of the boll weevil, made matters decidedly 
worse. In many sections the farmers’ cash and credit were 
exhausted and their morale was so low that the mere men- 
tion of financial outlay for improvements almost brought 
on apoplexy. 

Large-scale production of cotton is carried on almost 
exclusively with hired labor or with share tenants, who are 
little more than laborers. These men are low in the indus- 
trial scale and poorly paid. Many are improvident and 
constantly in debt. They are, therefore, dissatisfied with 
their method of livelihood. 

Their institutions are poor and rendered poorer because 
of their shifting constituency. The church, the school, and 
the lodge are the only plantation institutions. These fluc- 
tuate rapidly in attendance and support. There is little 





GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 47 


opportunity for developing any intelligent local leader- 
ship. One needs only to drive through such a section to 
note its drawbacks. For miles and miles the road stretches 
through plantations without a church or school. Then at 
some cross-road point, a miniature steeple upon a build- 
ing little larger than a cabin proclaims it a church. Some- 
times a small school and lodge hall stand near by. As often 
as not, church, school, and lodge use the same building. 
It serves for education during week days, for recreation a 
few nights in the month, and for worship at irregular inter- 
vals when the itinerant preacher gets around. 

With unsettled population conditions, plantation houses 
are not homes; they are little more than temporary shel- 
ters where the laborer remains until the crop is made and 
then moves on. The traveler in the Black Belt is depressed 
with the desolateness of these isolated one- and two-room 
cabins, which stand in the cotton fields without attempt at 
decoration, with no garden, and even without any of the 
simple comforts of primitive country homes. They are 
often occupied by families of eight or ten people and four 
or five hounds. 

To make matters worse, some planters persistently 
exploit their labor. Under the share-cropping system the 
temptation to do this is especially strong. The share ten- 
ant comes to the landlord with nothing but the clothes on 
his back and a few pieces of household furniture. For a 
period of eight or nine months, until the crop is made, he 
must be fed, clothed, housed, furnished with fertilizer, seeds, 
animals, implements, and stock feed. At the end of the 
year the crop is divided half and half after the tenant’s 
expenses have been deducted. 


48 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Among the Negroes there are persistent complaints of 
unfairness in settlement at the end of the year. Some of 
these complaints are justified and some arise from the fact 
that the tenants are illiterate and keep no accurate accounts, 
and hence are uninformed as to their true financial status 
at the end of the crop year. 

Much of the movement arises from this dissatisfaction 
with crop settlements. On the other hand, where a tenant 
or laborer moves in the middle of a crop year, he imposes 
a great hardship on the landlord, because he has been fed 
and financed by the landlord’s advances made upon the sole 
security of a growing crop, which is dead loss if the tenant 
moves off in the middle of the season. Many landlords 
have been almost ruined in this way. 

It is this situation which has given rise, in some states, 
to repressive laws aimed at the discouragement of migra- 
tion. Among these are statutes making it a crime to quit 
a contract while in debt. Out of such laws peonage com- 
plaints arise. Another almost universal statute in the 
South is that aimed at labor agents, requiring the payment 
of a license fee of $500 to $1000 in each county in which 
labor is recruited and making it a crime to recruit labor 
without the payment of this fee. 

As against these efforts to hold Negro laborers, there have 
been efforts to drive them out. These do not come from the 
landlord class, but from irresponsible members of the white 
tenant and small farmer group who are more or less in com- 
petition with Negro tenants. In several Southern counties 
Negroes have gone to worship on Sunday to find every 
church door placarded with the warning to all of them to 
be out of the county by a certain date. Such warnings have 





= 


GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 49 


often been the work of practical jokers, but they have 
caused an abiding fear in the Negro who lives in isolated 
rural sections, especially when signed with the cabalistic 
initials K.K.K. In other cases law-abiding Negro citizens 
were whipped or otherwise terrorized by night riders and 
driven from home. Such cases have not been common, but 
have been widely discussed among the Negroes and have 
been a big factor in their unrest. 

The result of all this economic depression, exploitation, 
and violence has been a great acceleration of the natural 
cityward movement. The 1920 census showed 3,559,000 
Negro city dwellers, 1,550,000 of whom were in the North 
and West. There are now probably more than 4,000,000 
in cities, over a third of the Negro population. It is es- 
timated that over eleven thousand farms, aggregating 
250,000 acres, were deserted in Georgia between January 
and May, 1923, and conditions are about the same in 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. This means the 
loss of millions of dollars to Southern agriculture and a 
grave condition for the productivity of the country as a 
whole. 

Despite their handicaps, however, Southern communities 
are making some progress in bettering conditions. They 
are taking steps which can be made more rapidly when 
prosperity returns to the farm. The most fundamental 
thing is that they are altering the farming system. The 
boll weevil and the labor shortage combine to make the 
planter discard the yoke of slavery to cotton and diversify 
his crops. By cutting dewn the cotton acreage and in- 
creasing the amount of winter grain, corn, velvet beans, 
peanuts, potatoes, cane, and peas, the planter can cultivate 


50 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


more land per laborer. Under this system more machinery 
is used also. On the whole, therefore, when the temporary 
ill effects of the suddenness of the movement have passed, 
the net result to Southern agriculture will probably be 
beneficial. The farmer will learn to be more economical 
with his land and labor, and will improve living conditions 
in rural districts. 

Persistent effort is also being made to improve school 
conditions for Negroes. This is one of the big items in the 
mind of Negro leaders. From their observation of the 
benefits of the white man’s learning, and as a reaction from 
the sting of former assertions that a Negro is incapable of 
learning, even the rank and file of the colored people have 
acquired a veritable passion for schooling. Recognizing 
this, numbers of Southern communities are building schools 
as fast as their means will allow. The Julius Rosenwald 
Fund for aiding Negro rural school building reports that 
within the past few years 2565 rural schools have been built 
at a total cost of $10,400,000, of which $5,680,000 was sup- 
plied from public taxes. In addition, many schools have 
been built without the aid of this fund. 

As the realization grows that violence, and especially 
lynching, causes great unrest among the colored people, 
there is a marked increase in the determination of the 
thinking members of the community to bring to justice 
the perpetrators of violence and cure them of their prac- 
tice. As far as the South is concerned, therefore, the move- 
ment of Negroes is virtually a strike against conditions, 
economic and social, which arise in Southern agriculture. 
The strike serves to focus the public mind on these condi- 
tions and efforts are made to improve them. Thus the 


GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 51 


movement of Negroes tends in the long run to improve both 
the economic and the social conditions in the South. As 
the Negro moves, his grievances are brought to light and 
an effort made to eliminate them. 

The effects of this movement on industry are more or less 
obvious. On the eve of a wave of prosperity, when labor is 
needed for expansion, a source of cheap labor is opened up. 
Much of this labor comes right to the doors of the factory 
without recruiting. There can be no doubt that, compared 
with the non-English-speaking foreigners of former days, 
the Negro is a good industrial laborer. Until recently 
there was a rather persistent fiction in the South that the 
Negro was incapable of working with machinery. This 
has been disproved by the extent to which Negroes have 
been accepted and retained in the semi-skilled operations 
of the steel and automobile companies. In steel plants they 
rise as high as molders and occasionally as high as ruffers 
and rollers. The whole heat-finishing department of a 
large automobile plant is solidly Negro, and employers are 
constantly finding new uses in the skilled and semi-skilled 
operations to which this labor is adapted. 

Another feature which appeals to many employers is 
that, as a rule, the Negro has been a non-union laborer. 
This is not his fault, since he usually joins the union when 
he can. Union labor, however, naturally looks askance on 
this influx of cheap, unorganized black men, and in many 
instances excludes them from their organizations. The 
American Federation of Labor announces a policy of non- 
discrimination, but the admission of members is entirely 
within the jurisdiction of each local union; and in many 
instances these unions exclude Negroes. 


52 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Upon the Negro himself the effects of this competition 
for his services are diverse. By moving North he obtains 
better wages, but these are almost balanced by immensely 
increased living costs. Probably his greatest advantage is 
in the superior living conditions of the city — better schools, 
churches, and recreation facilities, superior housing con- 
ditions and police protection. 

If one considers the effects on the race as a whole, rather 
than only on individuals, the picture is more confused. 
The individual migrant looks to his immediate advantage, 
but when the long-time effects on family and group life 
are considered, immediate advantage is often outweighed 
by ultimate drawbacks. Among these long-range consid- 
erations may be mentioned the following: 

From a home-loving, home-staying race the Negro has 
become the greatest wanderer among the restless groups 
of the United States. More than half the share tenants 
and laborers live on a place for one year only and then 
move. The 1920 census showed more than a fifth of the 
colored population living outside its state of birth. The 
enumeration showed 266,o00 Virginia-born Negroes living 
in other states. Next in rank came Mississippi with 210,000, 
Georgia with 202,000, Alabama with 190,000, South Caro- — 
lina with 169,000, North Carolina with 162,000, Tennessee 
with 147,000, and Louisiana with 115,000. Having lost 
their anchor the race is suffering many of the disadvantages 
of instability. | 

The crowding in cities has been one of the great causes 
of the decreasing Negro birth rate. Men and women are 
not equally attracted to any given community. Male 
agricultural laborers move to industrial cities. Women 


GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 53 


are attracted to other cities by domestic service oppor- 
tunities. In many of the Southern cities and in some of 
those of the East the ratio of females to males is about 100 
to go, and in some cases as high as 100 to 80. In industrial 
cities this is reversed. In Detroit the ratio is 137 men to 
100 women, while in some small industrial towns it is almost 
2 to 1. Thus by the arithmetic of population, hundreds 
of colored men and women are destined to remain unmar- 
ried. This is a fruitful source of immorality and crime, as 
well as of reduction in the birth rate. Health conditions 
in cities are also unfavorable to Negroes. Tuberculosis, 
pneumonia, and infant diseases take a dreadful toll. In 
fact, in some Northern cities the colored birth rate is less 
than the death rate. In New York City between 1906 
and 1916 the deaths amounted annually to about 400 more 
than the births. In the absence of immigration these 
places would show a shrinkage of Negro population. 

Other adverse results of the cityward trend are seen in 
the increased rates of crime, insanity, and dependency 
among urban populations. Because the migrants plunge 
from the simple, strictly-ordered life of the plantation 
into the complex stresses and strains of the city, it is to be 
expected that crime and insanity would increase. This has 
been the case. When it is considered, however, that a 
large proportion of the migrants are young and single, the 
increase in crime and insanity rates has not been alarming. 
A closer examination of colored crime records indicates 
that many of the arrests are for minor infractions of city 
ordinances. 

As the migration settles down to a more normal and 
steady stream, or as the industrial labor market becomes 


v4 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


saturated, these adverse effects of the stresses and strains 
of city life will doubtless be lessened. The ratio between 
the sexes will be balanced and the Negro will become more 
accustomed to city life. 

* The final test of the good or ill effect of migration on the 
Negro will be his ability to rise from the ranks of unskilled 
labor into the ranks of the semi-skilled and the skilled. 
If he is destined to remain a cheap, easily exploited labor 
group, then it would be far better for him to stay in his 
present recognized status in Southern agriculture and 
battle against its adversities for a more or less independent 
place as owner and renter of the soil. On the other hand, 
if there is room for a sufficient number to rise, then there 
will be an undoubted benefit to the race in the opening of 
this avenue. 

While the influx of rural Negroes strains race relations in 
industrial centers, especially during seasons of unemploy- 
ment, the dispersion of colored population is a blessing for 
the social situation in the Black Belt. In fact, the Black 
Belt proper —the area where Negroes are in the majority — 
is shrinking. Between 1910 and 1920 there was hardly a 
county in the South where the proportion of white people 
was not on the increase. In 1880 there were 300 counties 
with a Negro majority. In 1910 this 300 had shrunk to 
264, and in 1920 only 220 of these remained. In 1910 there 
were 53 counties where the proportion of colored to white 
was more than three to one, but in 1920 only 32 showed 
such a high proportion. This scattering of Negroes from 
the predominantly colored neighborhoods lessens the dema- 
gogic talk of ‘‘Negro domination.” At the same time it 
gives the Negroes more opportunity to learn from their 


GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION 55 


white neighbors by observation than is possible when they 
live to themselves in masses. : 

In the long run, therefore, there is no cause for pessimism 
regarding the movement. The temporary ill effects on the 
Southern landlord and on the city-dwelling Negro show 
signs of adjustment, and as far as the Negro problems in 
general are concerned it is a great advantage that they 
should be spread and made nation-wide, rather than 
remaining intensified in the South. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Boas, FRANZ. The Mind of Primitive Man, pp. 274-278. 

Census, United States. Negro Population in the United States, 1790- 
IQIS: 

Also Census of 1920 Population. 

Evans, Maurice A. Black and White in the Southern States, Chap- 
ter IX. 

MECKLIN, J. M. Democracy and Race Friction, pp. 153-157. 

Mourpuy, E. G. The Present South, pp. 153-161. 

Puiturrs, U. B. American Negro Slavery, Chapters VIII, IX, and X. 

Reuter, E. B. The Mulatto. 

Scott, Emmett. Negro Migration, Carnegie Foundation, Bulletin 16. 

Special Bulletin of the United States Department of Labor, “Negro 
Migration in 1916-1917.” 

STonE, A. H. Studies in the American Race Problem, Chapter IX. 

Witcox, WALTER F. Probable Increase of Negroes in the United 
States. Published in Stone, A. H. Studies in the American Race 
Problem, pp. 496-530. 

Woopson, CarTER G. A Century of Negro Migration. 

Woorter, T. J., Jr. Negro Migration, Introduction and Part II. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1, Make a study of the relative importance of birth rate, 
death rate, and immigration or emigration in determining Negro 
population increase in the United States and in some single state. 


56 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


2. List the cities over 75,000 in 1890 and study their in- 
crease in Negro population. What effect has this had on the 
Negro race? 


3. Study the census maps showing the percentage of Negroes 
by counties. Locate the ‘‘Black Belts.” Locate the sections 
where there are comparatively few Negroes. What explana- 
tion can you give for this distribution ? 


4. To what extent is the Negro himself responsible for his 
presence in certain localities, and to what extent has his dis- 
tribution been determined by the social and economic forces 
at work in the United States? 


5. Outline the effects on a particular community of emigra- 
tion or immigration of Negroes. 

6. Discuss the causes of the declining Negro birth rate. 

7. If the present rates of increase of the white and Negro 
populations continue, will their problems become more or less 
acute P 


8. Discuss the steps taken in the South to retain colored 
labor. 


CHAPTER IV 


HEALTH 


There is no other point of contact between the races where 
their mutual dependence is more real than in health mat- 
ters. But in spite of the cardinal importance of health this 
phase of Negro life has not received as much attention as 
education, religion, and economic life. As long as both 
races use the same common carriers, streets, and public 
buildings, as long as one serves in the home, in the laun- 
dry, and in the stores of the other, disease in one race 
increases the chance of disease in the other. For, as Booker 
Washington expressed it: ‘‘A disease germ knows no color 
line.” 

If the white people but knew the surroundings in which 
their servants live and in which their clothes are laundered, 
the interest in public health work for colored people would 
be redoubled. Many who are careful of the surroundings 
of their individual servants have not realized the value 
of giving them protection by providing a healthy colored 
community in which they may live. It is not unusual to 
find cases of contagious diseases in the home of a domestic 
who spends her days in the kitchen of a white family. 

There is a story of a white woman whose children had 
measles. When her laundress came she wished to be 
considerate and told her not to come any farther than the 

57 . 


58 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


gate, explaining that if she came in she would carry the 
germs back and give them to her three children. The 
laundress exclaimed: ‘‘That’s all right, my children have 
been having measles for a month.” There was no need 
for either mother to have a further object lesson in the inter- 
dependence of their health conditions. 

Increased attention to public health has lessened Negro 
sickness and death rates but they are still 50 per cent 
higher than white death rates. In the registration area in 
1920 the colored rate was 18.4 per thousand and the white 
rate 12.8perthousand. The Negro Year Book estimates that 
about 450,000 Negroes are sick all the time, that 225,000 
Negroes die annually, and that 100,000 of these deaths and 
a large proportion of the cases of sickness are from prevent- 
able causes. The annual cost to the Negroes themselves 
for funeral expenses alone is $15,000,000, and the economic 
loss to employers is probably $300,000,000, of which $150,- 
000,000 is due to preventable causes. The Year Book there- 
fore concludes that it would pay to spend $100,000,000 
upon the improvement of Negro health. These figures 
measure the dollar loss alone and, of course, take no ac- 
count of the useless suffering and anxiety which come 
from sickness and death. 


CAUSES OF DEATH 


When these causes of death are carefully considered it 
is evident that the Negro is dying principally of diseases 
which arise from filth, poor living conditions, and exposure. 
In other words, the Negro race is not greatly inferior to the 
white physically, but it lives under very inferior health © 
conditions. 7 


HEALTH 59 


The principal causes of Negro death are as follows: 


CaAuUsE oF DEATH NuMBER OF DEATHS ipbiai as 

1920 192I 1921 

1. Pneumonia and influenza .. . 23,396 11,183 107 

2. Tuberculosis of the lungs .. . 18,029 16,467 157 

3. Organic disease of the heart. . . 11,084 erere 110 

4. Acute nephritis and Bright’s disease 8,660 8,682 83 

5. Violent deaths (excluding suicide) 8,307 8,091 78 
6. Congenital debility and malforma- 

CLOMST PTT ton elt sel irked Sakic). 6,166 7,304 70 

7. Cerebral hemorrhage and softening 5,425 5,639 54 

8. Diarrhea and enteritis . .. . 4,310 4,328 42 

g. Cancer and malignant tumors. . 3,699 3,822 37 

7 ED Keay ot POE OUP gale yeceie pane) ie appara Ps 2,519 2,310 22 





The table indicates that the colored people have their 
peculiar health problems which require especial emphasis 
in public health work. They suffer tremendously more 
from lung complaints than whites. The two leading causes 
given above, pneumonia and influenza, and tuberculosis, 
show a combined rate of 364 per 100,000. When it is 
also considered that whooping cough causes more infant 
deaths than measles, croup, and diphtheria combined, the 
prevalence of diseases of the respiratory system is further 
emphasized. 

Several city health officers in Southern cities have maps 
with a black pin placed for each tubercular patient in the 
city. Often in some part of the colored section there is a 
cluster of these pins indicating as many tubercular cases 
in a small area as there are in all of the other sections of 
the city combined. This is usually in a lodging house sec- 
tion where the people are really below the poverty line and 


60 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


eke out their living by taking in one or two lodgers. Some 
of these houses have had cases of tuberculosis in them 
continuously for twenty years. 

‘Excessive infant mortality in the colored population ac- 
counts for the death of between 10 and 15 per cent of the 
babies before they reach their first birthday. Valuable 
lives of young mothers are unduly sacrificed in childbirth. 
Here again are the results of ignorance and filth. The 
tenth cause in the table above is deaths in childbirth, show- 
ing a rate of 30 per hundred thousand in the total popula- 
tion. However, when it is considered that only women of 
child-bearing age are subjected to such deaths it is seen 
that the true significance of this rate is not apparent 
unless it is figured on the basis of women of child-bearing 
age, in which case it runs to about 100 per hundred 
thousand. The rdéle of filth and ignorance is further em- 
phasized by the fact that a third (877) of these deaths 
were from puerperal septicemia, or blood poisoning, which, 
in nearly every instance, is due to insanitary conditions in 
childbirth. 

Here also the ignorance and superstition of the midwife, 
or, as she is often called, the ‘‘Granny,” is evident. It 
has been estimated that in the rural South 60 per cent 
of the Negro women and about 12 per cent of the white 
women are attended in childbirth only by Negro mid- 
wives, without any advice from a physician. Until re- 
cently no systematic effort was made to instruct these 
women except in a few cities. Their craft was handed 
down to them by word of mouth from the previous gen- 
eration. Their well-meaning but unskilled ministrations 
have many times resulted in needless death and deformity. 


HEALTH 61 


Although it shows in the causes of death only indirectly, 
the universal testimony of physicians is that venereal dis- 
ease is also very prevalent among the colored people. The 
army figures also bear out the higher incidence of these 
diseases among the colored recruits. In the table above, 
this type of disease contributes to the high rate of death 
from organic heart troubles, nephritis, and Bright’s dis- 
ease and cerebral hemorrhage. 

All of these principal scourges of the colored population 
yield readily to public health methods. It has been con- 
clusively demonstrated that by the expenditure of time, 
effort, and money to segregate cases, disinfect houses, in- 
struct the families of patients, secure proper ventilation, 
prophylaxis, and feeding, tuberculosis can be checked, 
infant deaths can be greatly decreased, the life of expect- 
ant mothers safeguarded, and the incidence of venereal 
disease greatly reduced. The answer to the Negro health 
problem is, therefore, education and more education, pub- 
lic health campaigns and more public health campaigns. 
The trouble in the past has been that too many com- 
munities have mapped out their campaigns of physical 
education and their public health programs without pro- 
vision for the Negro. 


RECENT IMPROVEMENT 


But there is a brighter side to the picture. The health 
of colored people is improvable and is rapidly improving. 
Based on the experience and careful record of 1,500,000 
policy holders of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- 
pany, a recent very optimistic report by Dr. Dublin 
announces a striking improvement in Negro health during 


62 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


the past ten years. That this improvement is not an ac- 
cidental thing and really reflects a thoroughgoing change 
in the mortality situation is indicated by the fact that the 
death rate has declined in every age period of life, and mor- 
tality from a diversity of conditions has been lessened. 
Among the very young children the death rate has dropped 
more than one half. Tuberculosis mortality has decreased 
from 418 per 100,000 to 244, or 42 per cent. Deaths from 
typhoid and malaria, which especially affect the rural dis- 
tricts, declined 75 per cent. In spite of the influenza 
epidemics, deaths from pneumonia have declined 26 per 
cent. Improvement along so many and diverse lines is 
most hopeful and indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt 
that the colored people have awakened to the importance 
of the health problem in their affairs. They have actually 
determined to profit by the opportunity to reduce the 
unnecessary loss of life from which they have suffered. If 
to this determination and increased activity on the part 
of colored peoplé there can be added more organizations 
whose program wholeheartedly provides for public health 
work in the colored community much progress can be made 
in the next two or three decades. 

But the difficulties may as well be faced first. These 
.are two: First the ignorance of the mass of Negroes, espe- 
cially those in rural districts. Second, the lack of organ- 
izations for spreading the health message. The traveler 
in the rural South is impressed with the poverty of the com- 
munity life in many areas. Where the land is held in large 
plantations, tenant houses are scattered, villages are rela- 
tively few, and communication is poor. The only rural 
institutions are the church and the school, and these are 


HEALTH 63 


widely separated, poorly equipped, and hampered by 
reason of their shifting constituency. Fifty per cent of 
the tenants live on the farm only a year and then move 
elsewhere. They are pilgrims, merely sojourning a while 
and lacking in interest in their community or its institu- 
tions and leaders. 


CONSTRUCTIVE RURAL MOVEMENTS 


As weak as the rural institutions are, however, they are 
the starting point of any program which would reach out 
and be effective in the country districts. By ignoring them 
too many county organizations have become units func- 
tioning only in the principal towns and lacking in constitu- 
ency and influence in the villages and open country. The 
colored preacher and the colored teacher are the natural 
advisers and counselors of their people, even more so than 
white teachers and preachers are of white people, because 
their leadership is not divided with other classes as much 
as white leadership is. 

Very little has been done so far to increase the interest 
of rural preachers in public health, but some distinct prog- 
ress is being made with the teachers. The Anna T. 
Jeanes Foundation, in codperation with the state and 
county school authorities, maintains supervising teachers 
in 250 Southern counties. These teachers travel through- 
out the county, aiding all rural teachers with their prob- 
lems and bringing up the standard of the country school 
as much as possible. Within the past few years these 
teachers have been very useful in attacking the school 
health problems more systematically, and through the 
school they have affected the health problems of the 


64 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


community. This is a big field, however, and one in which 
much remains to be done. Entirely too many communities 
provide carefully for the medical inspection of white school 
children and ignore the black school children. Where epi- 
demics are concerned, such a policy defeats itself, for an 
epidemic among the colored children will rapidly spread 
to the white schools and undo the public health work pre- 
viously done in them. Any effort to reach the colored 
population with health programs must take into account 
these colored leaders, — the preachers, the teachers, and 
the farm and home demonstration agents. 

Next in importance to the colored leader is the Southern 
employer. The living conditions on many tenant farms 
are such that hygiene and sanitation are strangers. It 
has been said of some of the houses that the school children 
can return home and study geology through the floor, 
botany through the sides, and astronomy through the 
roof. The landlords need to be impressed with the actual 
cash value of a healthy labor supply. 

Much aid has been given to landlords by governmental 
agencies interested in better pigs, better mules, and better 
chickens, but, as yet, comparatively little has been done 
to help the farmer secure better labor. Within the past 
few years the farm and home demonstration agents have 
passed from a purely agricultural program to one which 
puts more stress upon farm health and sanitation. These 
are the strategic people for reaching the landlord. Com- 
paratively few colored farm and home demonstration 
agents are now employed, but those who are on the job are 
demonstrating their worth in reaching their own people 
and influencing the sentiment of the employers. 


HEALTH 65 


These, then, are the elements in the community upon 
which to build: The present health organizations, the 
colored leaders, the farm and home demonstration agents, 
and the employers. The proper person effectively to focus 
all these efforts is the colored county nurse, whose duty 
will not be to do bedside nursing but to organize parents 
and teachers to follow up medical inspection of school 
children, to organize neighbors to do the home nursing 
work, to organize midwives into instruction groups and 
interest the doctors in clinics, especially venereal disease 
clinics, and secure the codperation of the general health 
organizations of the county. 

The voluntary health organizations which are represented 
by many local functioning branches in the South are the 
Red Cross and the National Tuberculosis Association. 
These have colored nurses in a number of cities but very 
few in rural districts. In many places a white nurse, em- 
ployed by one or the other of these organizations, gives 
some time to work among the colored people. 

Many counties are now ready for the services of such 
public health nurses if part of the funds could be supplied 
by a private source for beginning the experiment. For every 
one of the 250 supervising teachers now at work there 
should be a county nurse on the job. Here is a big field 
of public health work ripe for the harvest. There is great 
need for the interest and financial support of foundations 
for Negro health operating in the same way as the founda- 
tions now in the field of stimulating Negro education. 
These foundations supply aid to states in maintaining 
state supervisors of schools and they supply aid to coun- 
ties in maintaining county supervisors and in developing 


66 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


strategic schools. There is nothing whatever to correspond 
to these agencies in the field of Negro public health, and in 
their absence it is difficult to persuade public authorities 
to appropriate public funds for colored nurses without 
a previous demonstration of their value. 

Colored nurses, though working under established health 
agencies, will need aid in enlisting the interest and organiz- 
ing the forces of the community. In order that this may 
be accomplished, an advisory body of white and colored 
citizens should be formed. The personnel of this body 
should represent the county and voluntary health organi- 
zations, the white employers, the educational boards, the 
farm demonstration forces, and the colored leaders. This 
board will provide the real team work which is so essential. 

In many counties such advisory boards may be found 
already formed in the county interracial committees. Eight 
hundred of these county committees have been organized 
by the Commission on Interracial Codperation. The 
primary object of these groups is to promote good will 
between the races, but they feel that good will is promoted 
best by working together for the good of the community. 
In a few places these committees are already backing health 
projects, and through their codperation during the past 
three years National Negro Health Week has been more 
widely observed than ever before. 


STATE DEPARTMENTS OF HEALTH 


All of these community efforts for Negro health should 
be administered by efficient, sympathetic state, county, and 
city health departments. The beneficent influences of state 
campaigns against tuberculosis, venereal disease, maternal 


HEALTH 67 


and infant diseases, and epidemics should be felt, as far 
as possible, by the colored people. Often they are the ones 
who need this work most. As the state departments of 
education employ specialists in Negro education, so the 
state departments of health should employ specialists in 
Negro health who can devote full time to organizing health 
projects among the colored people. 

Other states would do well to emulate North Carolina, 
where a state colored tuberculosis nurse is employed, and 
Georgia and South Carolina, where colored nurses attached 
to the state departments aid the maternal and infant 
hygiene work among their people. These colored nurses 
are especially helpful in reaching midwives and organizing 
them for instruction. 

The Georgia plan of carrying on the propaganda of the 
maternal and infant hygiene department is especially to 
be commended. This is done in a ‘‘Healthmobile,”’ which 
carries clinical facilities into rural districts and divides its 
time between white and colored people. A colored nurse 
travels with the healthmobile and organizes her people 
for the examinations and lectures so that they may be most 
effective. Negroes are so set apart and different in their 
community life from white people that there is need 
for such special methods of reaching them with health 
messages. 

A special function of state boards of Health should be 
that of reducing the frightful mortality from tuberculosis. 
Educational campaigns should be planned to reach both 
colored and white people, and the clinical facilities should 
provide for both. Tuberculosis sanataria are important 
welfare institutions for the rehabilitation of these patients. 


68 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Only a few Southern states and counties make any pro- 
vision for colored people in these sanataria, and the colored 
patients are, consequently, left in the community under the 
unskilled care of their families or neighbors. 


HOSPITALS 


The Census of Benevolent Institutions (1910) listed 325 
general hospitals in the South, of which 195 admitted Negro 
patients. Many of these, however, have only a small 
Negro ward. There are 144 hospitals entirely for colored 
people listed in the Negro Year Book. These are, for the 
most part, small and poorly equipped. Many of them con- 
sist of only a few rooms fitted up by one or two colored 
physicians to accommodate their private patients. There 
are large areas in the South where Negroes are far removed 
from hospital facilities, and where it is often necessary for 
patients who are seriously ill to make long and painful 
journeys to reach a hospital. 

There is much diversity of management and practice in 
these colored hospitals. Some are separate institutions, 
some are wards of city hospitals, some are operated by 
medical schools, and some are merely the adjuncts of pri- 
vate hospitals where one or two white surgeons can care 
for their colored patients. With the exception of the few 
separate hospitals, none of them provide facilities for 
young colored physicians to receive the practical hospital 
experience which is rapidly becoming a prerequisite for 
white doctors. In the colored wards of city hospitals and 
hospitals under white private management the internes 
and members of the visiting staff are in almost every 
instance white. Thus the patients receive the benefit of 


HEALTH 69 


the superior skill of the white physicians, but in many 
instances the young white doctor is prejudiced and his lack 
of sympathetic interest in the patient offsets his skill. 
And besides, the Negroes are, to a large extent, shut off 
from the development of skill and experience which come 
from hospital training. 

The development of hospitals in connection with the 
colored medical schools at Meharry and Howard has 
offered facilities for internes. In addition, there are a few 
other colored hospitals, such as those at Hampton Insti- 
tute, Tuskegee Institute, and Talladega College. But the 
majority of Negroes in general practice are forced to 
open their own small hospitals or to turn their surgical 
patients over to white surgeons. The best interests of all 
concerned demand the extension of these facilities for 
training colored physicians as rapidly as possible, for the 
really well-trained physician is the logical person to at- 
tend his own people and to furnish the health leadership 
which is so greatly needed. 


HOvusSING 


Something has been said already of the effect of rural 
housing on health, but the housing conditions in cities are 
even more menacing. For fifty years Southern cities have 
permitted the unregulated growth of Negro rental house 
sections which contain abominations to the eye and often 
to the nose. There is seldom any effort to enforce hous- 
ing codes prescribing the size of dwelling, space between 
houses, and sanitary arrangements. A few houses are 
actually built without windows. The landlord’s whim is 
the tenant’s lawand it is notorious that this type of rental 


70 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


property yields a higher per cent to the investor than any 
other real estate. 

Adverse economic conditions segregate Negroes in the 
cheap, unhealthful, unsightly portions of cities. Their 
houses are in the alleys near the business section, in the 
hollows, the railway yards, and on the outskirts. Sanitary 
inspectors avoid these districts, and failure of the city to 
extend sewer lines into them often makes compliance with 
sanitary regulations an impossibility. It is not at all 
unusual to find areas covering many blocks where all the 
families pollute the soil by surface toilets, or where the 
canons of decency, as well as those of sanitation, are violated 
by fifteen or twenty families who use the same toilet. In 
the smaller towns this soil pollution is a serious menace, 
because the people depend upon wells for their drinking 
water. 

The streets in these sections are usually unpaved and 
wholly lacking in garbage-removal facilities. These con- 
ditions are remediable and the money cost of the remedy 
is small in comparison to the saving in prevention of 
unnecessary sickness and death which would result. The 
fact that such conditions are permitted can, therefore, be 
attributed largely to gross ignorance and indifference on 
the part of the citizens of the community as a whole, and 
to gross inefficiency of the part of the city governments 
who permit a few penny-snatching landlords so to endanger 
the health of the whole town. 

In the needed betterment of housing and living condi- 
tions the Negroes themselves have a large part to play. 
Their own standards of sanitary life need to be raised. This, 
of course, is increasingly accomplished through home 


OO 


HEALTH 71 


ownership. The purchase of homes is one of the substan- 
tial signs of advancement of the race. In 1910 colored 
people owned 441,918 of their homes, and in 1920 this 
number had increased to 472,226, an increase of seven 
per cent in ten years. Many Negroes have a real ambition 
to own homes but are unable to finance the purchase. 

A few Negro business men, from time to time, have met 
this need by building small homes and selling them on 
reasonable terms. All such ventures have been successful. 
There is no greater field for “five per cent philanthropy”’ 
than that open to the man who can finance the building 
of neat, comfortable small homes ranging from $2000 to 
$5000. These houses will sell on long terms and be disposed 
of rapidly, relieving congestion in crowded Negro districts 
and, at the same time, paying the builder a reasonable 
profit. The Service Realty Company did this on a large 
scale in Atlanta and Augusta. 

The non-home owner also should be stimulated to de- 
velop a sense of responsibility for his sanitary surroundings 
and should be made to feel that he is a part of a community 
which will not tolerate insanitary spots. The increase of a 
general desire for better living conditions and a greater 
ability to maintain them among the masses will accelerate 
the efforts of municipalities to protect these living con- 
ditions by stricter housing codes, better streets, and more 
adequate removal of garbage and sewage. 


RECREATION 


The subject of health can hardly be dismissed without 
reference to the kindred subject, recreation. For proper 
relaxation is advocated as a preventive of many ills of both 


72 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


body and mind. Negroes are, however, woefully lacking 
in recreation facilities. Many of the school buildings have 
inadequate play space and practically none of those with 
space are equipped with play apparatus. Only one or two 
of the larger cities have parks or playgrounds for colored 
people. While they are a people naturally endowed with 
great sociability, the lack of means for getting together 
throws them back on commercial amusements, some of 
which are most vicious in character. Even though the 
commercial pool room and dance hall may be subject to 
grave abuses, there is little incentive to crusade against them 
when they are the only places to which the young people 
can repair for a few hours of amusement. 

In their love for music the colored people have an urge 
to clean recreation which, with a little intelligent effort, 
could be utilized to great advantage. With only a little 
aid in providing meeting places, instruments, and direc- 
tors, orchestras and choruses could be formed which would 
occupy much time pleasurably and profitably. It is cus- 
tomary in some towns for a colored chorus to give periodic 
entertainments in the open air at some central point where 
the whole community can enjoy the singing. Such a devel- 
opment of community music would not only enrich the 
musical life of the colored race but would enable the whole 
community to enjoy and appreciate their musical gift. 

The only systematized efforts at wholesome recreation 
among the colored people are carried on by the Young 
Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations. The 
Negro Year Book lists 67 colored Y.M.C.A’s of all types 
with paid workers. Many of these, however, are greatly 
hampered for lack of buildings or equipment. In 1910 


HEALTH 73 


Mr. Julius Rosenwald offered to pay $25,000 toward the 
cost of erecting any Y.M.C.A. building costing $100,000 or 
more and in 1920 he renewed this offer. Fifteen large city 
buildings were erected under the provisions of these offers. 
The International Committee of the Y.M.C.A. also carries 
on active student work in the colored colleges, and recently 
has begun to attack the high school problem. Sixty-four 
colored Young Women’s Associations are listed, and this 
organization also carries on an active student work. In 
the case of both Young Men’s and Young Women’s Chris- 
tian Associations, however, a disproportionate number of 
the organizations are in Northern states. The masses of 
Negroes in the rural sections and small towns are neg- 
lected in the matter of recreation. 

Health, good housing, and recreation go hand in hand, 
and the general public has just begun to realize that to 
attend to public health work, better housing, and saner 
recreation for colored people is to lessen the load on the 
jails, the almshouses, and the hospitals, and to increase the 
happiness and efficiency of the laboring classes. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


DowLinc, Oscar. The Negro and Public Health, Proceedings South- 
ern Sociological Congress, 1912. 

Dustin, Louis I. Reprint of address before National Urban League 
Conference. 

HAL, GeorcEe C. Negro Hospitals, Reprint from Southern Workman 
in 1910. 

HorrMan, F. L. Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. 

The Negro in Chicago, Chapter V. 

United States Census Vital Statistics and Reports State Departments 
of Health, Tuberculosis Associations, etc. 

~ Young Men’s Christian Association Year Book. 


74, THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. List the contagious diseases that are most likely to be 
transmitted from one race to another and look up the Negro 
death rate from each. 


2. From the Negro Year Book describe the observance of 
National Negro Health Week, and discuss its possible benefits. 
Report on its observance in your community. 


8. Study the housing conditions of a town or rural com- 
munity, observing houses owned and rented, poorer houses, and 
better houses. To what extent are the Negroes themselves 
responsible for the conditions and to what extent are white 
landlords and sanitary officials responsible ? 


4, From the point of view of a local community, what is the 
effect of the following agencies on Negro health: State Depart- 
ment of Health, County or City Department of Health, Red 
Cross, Tuberculosis Association, National Social Hygiene 
Association, Hospitals? (If there is sufficient time, these asso- 
ciations should be written for reports bearing on Negro work.) 


5. Report on the recreational facilities for Negroes in a 
community. 


6. What benefits do the Negroes in your state derive from the 
Sheppard-Towner Fund (administered by the State Depart- 
ment of Health) : (a) In maternal hygiene ; (6) in infant hygiene ; 
(c) in work among midwives? 

7. To what conditions does Negro mortality seem to be due 
primarily ? 


8. What is the estimated economic loss from preventable 
disease among colored people? 


CHAPTER V 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 


If agriculture in the South remains at the low ebb at 
which it has stood for several decades, its fate is sealed; 
and with it the fate of the United States as a self-sustaining, 
food-producing nation. Only for short periods of high 
prices has the Southern farm population been prosperous, 
and frequently in financial depressions and in long periods 
of low and medium prices, the farmer has barely made 
interest on his invested capital and has often suffered 
disaster. The condition of his tenants and laborers has 
been most unenviable. 

The greatest asset of the South has been a world monopoly 
of cotton, without which the rehabilitation of the farms 
devastated by the Civil War would have been almost im- 
possible. The necessity of profiting by this cotton monopoly 
has led to grave abuses in the agricultural system. Cotton 
was planted almost exclusively until the Southern farmer 
became dependent on others for his feed and foodstuffs. 
In a section whose rich soil and climate fitted it for growing 
a bewildering variety of crops, cotton usurped the field 
to a great extent. This process continued until the South 
became dependent upon the West for meats, upon the 
Middle West for mules and their feed, and upon the East 
for manufactured goods, fancy foodstuffs, grain and dairy 
products; and the Southern farmer paid a profit to the 

75 


76 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


farmers of other sections and paid freight on long hauls, 
merely for the privilege of growing cotton. This progressed 
to such an extent that when the farmer attempted to 
diversify he found it difficult to market anything but cotton 
or secure credit on any other basis. 

This dependence upon others for foodstuffs and the lack 
of adequate capital for financing farm operations have 
placed the Southern farmer in a poor bargaining position. 
To pay his debts he has been forced to sell his cotton in the 
fall, with the result that no monopoly price was exacted 
because he could not control the supply as monopolists do. 
The cotton profits have, for the most part, gone to the 
warehouseman, the speculator, and the manufacturer. 


SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE AND NEGRO LABOR 


The predominance of Negro farm labor, — ignorant, 
improvident, and constantly shifting, — has had its part in 
fastening this system on the South; and the system, on 
the other hand, has had its grinding effect in keeping the 
masses of the colored farm population in sorely straitened 
circumstances. Any effort to improve these conditions of 
Southern agriculture must, therefore, take into account the 
improvement of the Negro; and likewise any effort to im- 
prove the Negro must take into consideration the improve- 
ment of the agricultural system of which he is a part. 

From the beginning of colonial days the Negro showed 
adaptation to Southern agriculture to such an extent that the 
spread of colored population up to 1880 followed closely the 
cotton belt of the South. The physique of the race seemed 
more suited to the hot climate, and their ignorance and lack 
of skill bound the masses to farm labor. After three centuries 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 7 


of colored labor the mutual dependence of the Southern 
farmer and the Negro laborer has become traditional. 

The importance of farm life in Negro affairs is indicated 
by the fact that 45.2 per cent are inagricultural pursuits. In 
spite of the twentieth-century shift to the cities, two thirds 
of the Negro population lives in rural districts, and many 
others in small towns are dependent for their prosperity 
upon the surrounding rural areas. The 218,000 Negro farm 
owners and the 193,000 renters represent the largest group of 
colored people who have attained economic independence. 

On the other hand, the Negro is an important factor in 
the success of Southern agriculture. His bronze arms have, 
until recently, been almost wholly relied upon to till the 
fields of the Southern states, and the prosperity of the South- 
ern farmer is built upon them. The tenant system, the 
credit system, the crop system have all taken their present 
form largely because of the predominance of the Negro in 
the field of agricultural labor. His presence discourages 
immigration and therefore has precluded the settlement 
of the South by groups of foreign-born farmers similar 
to those of the Middle West. Statistically this importance. 
of the Negro to Southern agriculture is indicated by the 
fact that he cultivates 40,000,000 acres of land, an area 
twice as great as all the land in farms in the New England 
states, and he constitutes 4o per cent of all Southern agri- 
cultural workers. 


EXTENT AND DISADVANTAGES OF TENANCY 


Since the Civil War many Negroes have become tenant 
farmers. At its close, go per cent of the Negroes were agri- 
cultural laborers. The census of 1920 showed over nine 


78 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


hundred thousand owners and tenants and a million and 
two hundred thousand laborers. In other words, there are 
almost as many tenants and owners as there are laborers. 
About half of these laborers are classified as working on 
the home farm. That is to say, they are the members of 
the families of farmers who are working at home, — serving 
an apprenticeship. Of the nine hundred thousand Negro 
farmers about two hundred thousand are owners and seven 
hundred thousand are tenants. This makes the total 
division of the Negro agricultural workers as follows: 
Laborers 57.5 (on home farm 25 per cent), tenants 32.4 per 
cent, owners 10.1 per cent. Coincident with the growth 
of the Negro tenant class has been the growth of a white 
tenant class, and the South has rapidly become a section 
of tenant farms. In 1920, 51 per cent of the farms were 
operated by tenants and only 49 per cent by owners. 

The three principal types of farming are all to be found 
throughout the South. Some large tracts have been held 
intact by the owners and are cultivated entirely by hired 
labor. The decline of this type of farm is indicated by the 
fact that the average size of farm in the South has dimin- 
ished from 153 acres in 1880 to 109 acres in 1920. At the 
other end of the scale is the small farmer, owning his own 
land and cultivating it with his family and some hired 
labor. Between the two is the tenant plantation, a large 
tract which the owner has divided among numbers of 
tenants either on a share or on a rental basis. 

The tendency has been for the tenant areas to increase 
rather rapidly and the small farm areas rather slowly. 
This has occurred naturally in the breakdown of the ante- 
bellum plantations, which embraced a large part of the area 


_PRODUCING ON FARMS 70 


known to be fertile in 1870. While these plantations have 
been breaking down into tenant farms, however, new lands 
along the Coastal Plain have been cleared of timber, and 
commercial fertilizer has rendered others cultivable so that 
large new sections of labor and tenant plantations have been 
opened up. The upper Piedmont.counties of the Eastern 
Seaboard states have always formed an area of small 
farmers, and gradually, as the largé plantations disintegrate, 
small farmers have become interspersed throughout the 
Black Belt. 

It is to be devoutly hoped that this is only a temporary 
condition arising out of the transition of the South from the 
slave régime to that of freehold of the soil by the men who 
cultivate it. Rarely in the world’s history has tenancy 
worked satisfactorily. The unrest of the manorial period 
of England was an outgrowth of discontent of the tenants, 
and its result was an intense land hunger which sent the 
colonists to America in search of land which they could 
own. Continental Europe, during the same period, seethed 
with agrarian discontent; and much of the recent unrest 
of agricultural sections of Europe has arisen from dissatis- 
faction with the division of the product between the land- 
lord and the tiller of the soil. The present agricultural 
troubles of the South are but signposts on the road to real 
trouble in the future, if that future is to be one of tenant 
farming on the present basis. 

Tenancy is bad for the land because the tenant has no 
real interest in permanent farming. He is there to make 
money and to shift to other sections when his returns 
diminish. As a result he mines the soil instead of farm- 
ing it. John Stuart Mill quotes Arthur Young as saying: 


80 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


‘Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock and he 
will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years’ lease on 
a garden and he will convert it into a desert.” 

Share tenancy also reduces the product of the tenant, 
for, when he is fed and clothed on credit and receives only 
a half of the crop, he is not as ambitious or as energetic as 
he would be if he were working wholly for himself. It 
makes the scientific rotation of crops difficult because share 
tenant farming inevitably tends toward the production of 
crops which yield the highest money return. There is no 
encouragement to breed the farm animals which are so 
essential to the self-sustaining farm family. The tenant is 
not essentially interested in feed crops and the landlord is 
not interested in having his land used for production in 
which he does not share. The census of t910 showed 
396,000 colored farms with no cow and 308,800 with no 
hog. There are also hundreds of thousands of tenant farms 
without even a chicken. Many landlords do not properly 
encourage their tenants in the cultivation of a garden. 
Such neglect is short-sighted, because the cultivation of a 
garden and the breeding of domestic animals would furnish 
the tenant with food and reduce the amount which it 
is necessary for the landlord to advance to him to buy 
provisions. 

In addition to these adverse economic effects, a flood of 
social ills follows the tenant system. The lower standard of 
living means a lower intellectual and moral standard, with 
corresponding indifference to religious and political develop- 
ment. Tenants move frequently and hence have no abiding 
interest in rural institutions, and in such a transient popu- 
lation rural leadership languishes. 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 81 


For all these reasons a permanent tenant system is one 
to be avoided. When, however, the tenant 1s compared 
with the laborer, it is seen that his lot is the better. The 
laborer has less incentive to improve the land, less oppor- 
tunity to cultivate a garden or raise domestic animals, 
less interest in, or attachment to, rural institutions, and 
receives a lesser portion of the harvest. The status of 
the share tenant and that of the laborer are, however, very 
similar. Whenever tenancy gains at the expense of owner- 
ship, therefore, it is a dangerous sign; when it gains at the 
expense of the number of farm laborers, however, it repre- 
sents an advance. In other words, tenancy is a rung in the 
agricultural ladder whereby the landless, homeless man 
climbs into the ranks of the landowners. It will probably 
always remain to some extent as a transition stage between 
that of the young man on the home farm with no money 
and the independent landowning farmer. 


RELATIONS OF LABORERS, TENANTS, AND OWNERS 


As far as the Negro is concerned, the increase in tenancy 
represents a rise from the ranks of farm labor. This is 
evident because, at the close of the Civil War, all Negroes in 
agriculture were laborers. This increase has, therefore, 
not been at the expense of landownership. More white 
and colored landowners are reported at each successive 
census. The increase in colored tenants represents a 
transition of a number of colored farm laborers to the 
status of tenant. The progression from laborer to share 
tenant, to renter, to owner has not been steady with the 
masses. The average farm Negro is likely to go up and drop 
back, fluctuating as economic conditions change. Some 


82 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


get as high as renters, fail, and drop back to the status 
of laborers. A steady, industrious group has, however, 
climbed the tenant ladder into landownership. Whether 
the South remains predominantly a tenant section or not 
depends upon the ability of these tenants to take the second 
step and become landowners. Up to date this has been a 
slower process, but, in spite of the difficulties, 10 per cent 
of the Negroes engaged in agricultural pursuits have 
become owners of land. 

Because the wages of farm labor are very low, fluctuating 
from $15 to $50 per month, the energetic man seeks to 
escape from the laboring class as soon as possible. When 
the colored farmer no longer desires to work as a laborer, 
he asks the landlord for a half-share contract. It is not 
necessary that he have money, because the landlord fur- 
nishes everything necessary for farming and even advances 
him money to pay for his food and clothing, and deducts 
these advances from the tenant’s half at the end of the year. 
Under this arrangement the tenant gains or loses according 
to his success in raising the crop. 

On the other hand, the landlord may make a high per- 
centage on his investment in a share crop, for, if the tenant 
is successful, the landlord makes interest on his money, 
rent on his land, and a share of the profits in the enterprise. 
A study of farming in the Yazoo Mississippi Delta in 1913, 
made by the United States Bureau of Farm Management, 
revealed: That the income of the half-share tenant is lower 
but steadier and less subject to ruinous fluctuations than 
that of any of the other classes of farming population except 
that of laborers. In this respect they are much like laborers. 
The number of failures among share tenants is very low. 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 83 


The average income is $333 (1913). Only 2.9 per cent 
earned less than $100 and only 5.1 per cent earned over 
$600. That the income of cash renters is still higher and 
still more subject to fluctuations. This class averaged $478 
in income, but 9.8 per cent failed to make $100, while 28.2 
per cent made more than $600. As the authors point out, 
“This difference is probably influenced but not entirely 
accounted for by the size of holdings.” 

From the point of view of the landlord the factor of 
income is reversed. His income from share-tenant farms 
yielded, on an average, 13.6 per cent on his investment. 
Where the share tenant’s income is less than $100, however, 
the landlord’s return is only about 3 per cent on his 
investment, but from share tenants with an income of over 
$1000, the landlord’s yield is over 25 per cent. In the 
case of cash renters, the landlord’s return was practically 
fixed at 6 or 7 per cent. The average is 6.6 per cent, the 
low range 5.7 per cent, and the upper range 8 per cent. 
Balanced against these differences in income is the fact 
that, in the case of third and fourth tenants and renters, 
the landlord not only furnishes less capital, but assumes a 
smaller risk than he does in dealing with share tenants. 

It is comparatively easy to understand, from the financial 
point of view, why, in practically all cases where landlords 
can give personal supervision to their planting operations, 
they desire to continue the share-cropping system as long 
as possible. On the other hand, it is equally as easy to under- 
stand the natural desire of the ambitious tenants who have 
saved a little money, to ‘‘get up in the world” by chancing 
the greater gains of third and fourth cropping and renting 
even at the risk of a greater loss. Negroes with managerial 


84 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


ability who have accumulated a little money and who own 
their stock and implements, therefore prefer to operate as 
independent renters. 


GrowTtH OF NEGRO TENANCY 


In normal times this step from share tenancy to renting 
is very easily made. The Negro who has the reputation 
of being a good farmer can readily secure the credit for the 
necessary purchases, and, if he is thrifty and has good 
crops, he can pay off these loans in several years. In times 
of great farm prosperity, however, many landlords who 
rent out their lands during lean years, come back actively 
into farming and return to the share system. For this 
reason the 1920 census, taken at the peak of prosperity, 
showed a great increase in share tenants and decrease in 
renters. As arule, however, with the exception of the period 
of 1910 to 1920, an increasing number of Negroes have been 
forging steadily up the agricultural ladder from laborer to 
share tenant, from share tenant to renter, and from renter 
to owner. 

The following census figures show the extent to which 
this has been true: 


TENURE OF FARMS OPERATED BY NEGRO FARMERS 


1920 I9Io 1900 
CIWTCIS cote «char see 218,612 218,972 187,797 
Caseitenants | dott ue aii eae 193,102 285,950 273,560 
Sharetenants e060 ¥.)) atin ur 510,424 384,524 283,614 


MIONBRETS Bh rie nei ape yeh eae 2,126 1,434 1,744 
ORE n ie ey ONBE LO DAR alan Din 925,708 893,370 746,715 





PRODUCING ON FARMS 85 


In spite of the handicaps of the unprofitable agricultural 
system, the poverty of rural life, and the actual unfair- 
‘ness of some landlords, the Negro farmer has progressed to 
such an extent that Southern agriculture seems to offer the 
chief opportunity to work himself into a self-sustaining and 
respectable economic status. 


THe DRIFT FROM THE FARM 


Recent evidences, however, indicate that many rural 
Negroes have despaired of overcoming the handicaps and 
are deserting the farm. There were actually 700,000 fewer 
Negroes in agriculture in 1920 than in 1910. The slight 
decrease in Negro owners between 1910 and 1920 is truly 
alarming. It indicates that some owners actually sold out 
and joined the cityward exodus and that energetic men who 
otherwise would have become owners also deserted the 
farm. The decrease of 93,000 renters was due in part to 
the fact that the high prices of 1919 induced many landlords 
to refuse to rent their lands and to insist on the share-tenant 
arrangement. There were, however, many idle acres in the 
South to which these renters could have moved, but they 
either lapsed into share tenancy or moved into the city. 
This shrinkage in the number of Negro owners and renters 
indicates the startling probability that colored people are 
losing what has been their most hopeful opportunity, or 
rather trading a most hopeful agricultural opportunity for 
a rather problematical position in Northern industry. 

Any one reasonably familiar with the situation in the 
South can but feel that if this drift from the farm to the city 
should continue until the Negro loses his hold on the soil 
it would be a great disaster to the race and a misfortune 


86 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


for the South. While some scattering of the Negro popu- 
lation is beneficial, the continued movement of the bet- 
ter class of Negroes would be a misfortune to the South 
because the self-sustaining Negroes on the farm make a 
real contribution to the South’s economic strength and 
present fewer problems of health and morals than do the 
city dwellers. It would be a calamity to the race because 
so large a proportion have made a start toward success in 
agriculture and have thus earned for themselves a respect- 
able standing in the community. Again there is less com- 
petition and consequently less racial friction in agriculture 
than in any other line of work. 

The growing tendency to diversification of crops and 
improved agricultural methods is undoubtedly greatly 
improving the economic status of the Southern agricultu- 
ral worker. The improved economic conditions will be at- 
tended by better roads, better churches, better schools, and, 
in short, a richer life for the rural people. The forces of 
Christianity and Democracy are also at work to improve 
race relations, to secure greater protection and juster 
treatment of colored people in rural districts. These 
tendencies indicate a bright outlook for the colored man in 
agriculture, especially if, through good management, he 
can rise through the tenant class into the ranks of the 
independent farmers and can make friends in his com- 
munity. To such a class agriculture offers an opportunity 
of living and rearing a family comfortably in surroundings 
where morals and health are good and educational ad- 
vantages constantly improving, in a land where generous 
nature has provided all that man requires for prosperity 
and happiness. 


PRODUCING ON FARMS _ 87 


A British traveler in the South became most enthusiastic 
over the agricultural opportunity of the Negro as compared 
to that of the natives of British Colonies. 

Judging by the standards of the producing British Colonies 
land is cheap; judged by its possibilities it is very cheap. 
This means that if he (the Negro) liked to take to agriculture 
he could at once purchase and stock a small improved farm or a 
larger unimproved one, and raise enough in a very few years to 
return the purchase price. Such a man need never be in debt. 
He could buy his requirements and sell his produce on the very 
best terms, as well as any white man, and yearly improve his 
holding and add to his possessions. — M. S. Evans, ‘“ Black 
and White in the Southern States,” pp. 248-249. 


The fact that larger numbers of Negro farmers have not 
taken advantage of these opportunities is due, in a great 
measure, to their lack of training in thrift and inability to 
overcome the difficulties which arise from the one-crop 
system. These difficulties which confront the Negro are 
real and need to be recognized. 


LAXITY IN TENANT AGREEMENT 


The first difficulty arises from the laxity of the business 
methods employed in the share-cropping operations. The 
ignorant and thriftless share tenant comes to the landlord 
with nothing but the clothes on his back and has to be 
housed, fed, clothed, provided with stock, feed, seeds, and 
fertilizers until the harvest can be gathered. After the 
crop has been divided into shares, the loans to the tenant 
for his maintenance are deducted from his share before it 
is turned over to him. In nine cases out of ten there is no 
contract, — merely a verbal agreement. Often neither the 
landlord nor tenant keep strictly accurate accounts, both 


88 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


depending upon the preservation of receipts or store 
accounts to keep track of debits. This laxity leads to dis- 
content with settlements. Some landlords willfully take 
advantage of their tenant’s ignorance and helplessness and 
appropriate his share of the crop as well as their own. 
When the tenant has no contract and keeps no records he 
has very little chance of recourse to the courts. Such land- 
lords who ‘‘farm their Negroes rather than their land”’ are 
by no means in the majority, but there are enough of them 
in many communities to keep alive a spirit of discontent 
and resentment among the colored farming population. 
Their presence in a community makes it harder for the 
honest, fair-dealing men to secure contented laborers and 
tenants. As often as not the tenant is discontented with 
his settlement even though he has been justly dealt with. 
When he keeps no records and is extravagant in his pur- 
chases of food and feed, and when his crops sell for less than 
he expected, he often feels that he should have more than 
his share actually amounts to. This dissatisfaction with 
crop settlements is a potent factor in the unrest of the Negro 
rural population and needs the constructive attention of 
those genuinely interested in the advancement of Southern 
agriculture. 

As Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, a keenly observant Negro stu- 
dent, puts it: 


A thrifty Negro in the hands of well-disposed landlords and 
honest merchants early became an independent landowner. 
A shiftless, ignorant Negro, in the hands of unscrupulous land- 
lords or Shylocks, became something worse than a slave. The 
masses of Negroes between the two extremes fared as chance 
and the weather let them. 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 89 


It is obvious that the Negro himself can do much to 
remove himself from the position in which he can be imposed 
upon. In the first place no one but the share tenant is in 
such a position, and the thrifty, hard-working farmer can 
rise from the share tenancy to renting or ownership. In 
the second place study and application on the part of the 
share tenant will enable him to keep his own accounts and 
safeguard himself from exploitation. Passage of laws to the 
effect that no tenant contract is enforceable unless it is 
written would also help this situation, and the custom of 
keeping a memorandum account book foreach tenant would 
help clear up crop settlements. 

Many economists feel that tenancy will always be more . 
or less prevalent. They reason that the pressure of the 
population upon food supply tends to send the price of land 
up to the point which discourages ownership. At any rate 
tenancy will be a factor in the agricultural situation and 
in the task of racial adjustment for many generations. 

Is it not, then, the wise thing to turn for guidance to 
countries, such as England, where legislation has mitigated 
the evils of tenancy both for the tenant and for the 
landlord? One most worth-while reform inaugurated in 
England is in the reimbursement of tenants for permanent 
improvements which they make on the land. It is to the 
advantage both of the tenant and the landlord that the 
tenant treat the land as if it were his own; that he build 
the necessary fences and terraces, improve the farm build- 
ings, and drain the swampy places. Under the present 
system he has absolutely no incentive to make improve- 
ments. But if, when he moved, he could, by law, demand 
reimbursement for unexhausted improvements, then he 


go THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


would be encouraged to make these improvements. Such 
laws, coupled with a concerted effort to create among the 
tenant classes a desire for more permanency and more 
progressive farming, would greatly mitigate the evils of 
tenancy. 
RURAL CREDITS 

The second great difficulty faced by the Negro is the 
iniquitous credit system which has grown up with the 
tenant system. The South is continually one year behind 
with its finances and has been so for fifty years. When the 
Civil War wiped out all capital except land, the Southern 
farmer formed the habit of borrowing to finance his opera- 
tions and giving as security a mortgage on his growing crop. 
Many of them have never yet caught up, and each year, 
when the crop is planted, they borrow at a high rate of 
interest to pay for their feed, fertilizers, seeds, and imple- 
ments. The fact that the one-crop system has made the 
farmer buy so much foodstuff which he should produce at 
home has made this credit burden all the heavier. The 
shiftlessness and lack of thrift of the mass of Negro tenants 
has cemented the burdensome system so that each year a 
greatly disproportionate part of the money of the farmer 
and the tenant goes to the banker and the supply merchant 
as interest. This high rate is charged as a matter of pro- 
tection. The risk involved in such loans is great, for a crop 
failure often means the loss of the money. No one can 
blame the banker and the merchant for protecting against 
such loss, but the fact remains that the resulting high rate 
is a great burden to the farmer. The employment of so 
large a proportion of the South’s mobile capital in these 
loans and the necessity of bringing in capital from other 


PRODUCING ON FARMS QI 


sections has fixed a high rate of interest. The rate in the 
South averages from two to three per cent higher than that 
in the East and Middle West. In this respect the lack of 
thrift of the farmer and the resulting rotten system of agri- 
cultural credit acts as a drawback to Southern industry, 
burdening it also with the high interest rate fixed by the 
crop-loan system. 

It was not until recently that a farmer could conveniently 
secure long-time mortgages on his land and escape from 
the crop-lien system. Capital was too scarce and too well 
occupied in reaping high rates from crop liens and supply 
accounts to be employed in land mortgages. As Southern 
banking developed, many large city banks have opened 
farm-loan departments, but many of these make it a flat 
rule not to lend to Negroes. While there is some justifica- 
tion of this on the ground that fewer Negroes are thrifty 
farmers and these are subjected to greater difficulties than 
white farmers, still such an arbitrary policy seems short- 
sighted on the part of the banking interests, for there are 
numbers of Negro farmers who, with a small mortgage loan, 
could escape from the credit system and pay their debts 
in a few years. The refusal of the banks to develop this 
business will inevitably result in its development by Negro 
banks, just as the flat refusal of the majority of insurance 
companies to write Negro insurance has resulted in the 
development of large Negro insurance companies. 

The Federal Farm Loans could be of much assistance in 
this connection if it were not for the fact that prejudice 
militates against the Negro here also. These loans are not 
individual loans but are made to groups of farmers who 
apply through a local agent. In many communities a 


92 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Negro finds it difficult if not impossible to gain entrance 
to one of these groups. There are, however, a few Negro 
associations. 

PEONAGE 

The third pitfall which besets the thriftless and dis- 
advantaged Negro is that of peonage,——a condition in 
which some Negroes are held in semi-slavery to work 
out a debt which is seemingly never satisfied. Only the 
unsuccessful who contract a debt to a particularly un- 
scrupulous landlord fall into this condition, and many 
Southern communities are entirely free from peonage cases. 
Still, there are a sufficient number of cases which go 
uncorrected by public sentiment in some communities 
to cause abiding discontent among the colored people. 

One form of peonage arises naturally from a set of laws 
passed to protect the landlord’s legitimate interests. For 
years after the Civil War the Negroes were unreliable 
and unstable. It was not an uncommon occurrence for a 
landlord to feed them halfway through the crop year 
only to have them move off and leave his crops to the mercy 
of the weeds. To protect against this, laws were passed 
making it a misdemeanor to quit a contract upon which 
advances had been made. Under the letter of this law the 
laborer or tenant quitting such a contract should be brought 
back and lodged in jail. Practically, what often happens is 
that he is brought back and put on probation to his land- 
lord, or fined and compelled to work out his fine by the 
landlord, who pays the fine. Sometimes when the minor 
officers of the law connive with the landlord, tenants are 
brought back on warrants charging them with some trivial 
offense such as “stealing corn,” ‘“‘stealing one plow line,” 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 93 


or ‘‘stealing a chicken.”’ Occasionally these warrants are 
not even returned to the issuing officer and the tenant is 
merely put back to work under threat of jail. At other 
times he is fined and made to work out the fine. As has been 
said, this is not common. The majority of Southern land- 
lords deal fairly and treat their tenants as well as the 
agricultural system will permit, but there are cases of 
flagrant peonage and there are communities which wink at 
the practice and whose society welcomes the possessors of 
fortunes made in this way. 

Here again greater education and more thrift will lift 
the Negro above the plane where he can be imposed on in 
such a manner. But the pressure of public sentiment of 
white people should also be exerted against such dis- 
graceful practices. Social boycott would be too. mild a 
penalty for the man who indulges in such exploitation. 
Without this pressure of public sentiment on the part of 
decent people in the community it is difficult, even in the 
federal courts, to convict men of peonage. The federal 
government could, however, do much more than it is doing 
to destroy this practice if the Division of Investigation of 
the Department of Justice adopted the policy of assigning 
men the special responsibility of running these cases down 
instead of waiting until such cases are reported to them. 
The evidence in some cases is flagrant enough, and only a few 
convictions in each state would be necessary to bring about 
a marked crystallization of sentiment against the practice. 


FARM DEMONSTRATION AGENTS 


The greatest constructive force in the Southern rural 
districts is the farm and home demonstration service. 


94 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


These county demonstration agents are in direct contact 
with the farmer, the farmer’s wife, and the rural school 
children; and their messages of diversification, rotation of 
crops, and improved methods of cultivation are inspira- 
tion carried directly to the farm. Their corn clubs, pig 
clubs, poultry clubs, and canning clubs are the most con- 
crete and stimulating projects of agricultural education 
which have ever been conducted. 

This type of training is greatly needed to enable those 
Negroes who do remain in the South to make a decent 
living from the soil. Yet, comparatively few Negro agents 
are employed, and the white agents have their hands full 
to care for the white farmers in their counties. There are 
220 counties in the South in which Negroes are in the 
majority, and more than 500 others where they form a con- 
siderable proportion. In each of these a colored agent would 
more than pay for himself. At present only about 250 of 
the 1700 demonstration agents are colored. There are fully 
400 other counties which need such agents. South Carolina 
with 109,000 Negro farmers in 33 counties has only 7 agents. 
The largest number in any state is to be found in Alabama, 
where the 95,000 colored farmers are served by 37 agents. 
These men are financed partly by state and national 
appropriations and partly by the county. The difficulty 
arises in getting county officials to provide for colored 
agents. Funds are available from the state and federal 
appropriations whenever the county provides its share. 

The provision of credit, improvement of rural institu- 
tions, and the education of the farmer through agricultural 
schools, and through the work of the demonstration agents 
are all tasks of vital importance to the South. For, it 


PRODUCING ON FARMS 95 


matters not how many Negroes may leave the farms, those 
who remain need aid in order that they may make a 
respectable living from the soil and build progressive rural 
communities. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BAKER, R. S. Following the Color Line, Chapter IV. 

BANKS, E. M. Economics of Land Tenure in Georgia. 

BizzELL, W. B. Farm Tenantry in the United States. 

Brooks, R. P. The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia. 

Bulletins, States Relations Service, United States Department of 
Agriculture. 

Census, United States. Negro Population, 1790-1915, Chapter XX. 
Census, United States. 1900, Bulletin, #8. 

DuBorts, W. E. B. Bulletin of the United States Department of Labor, 
“The Negro Landholder in Georgia.” 

Evans, Maurice S. White and Black in the Southern States, Chapter 
XXVIT. 

Jones, T. J. The Negro and the Census of 1910. Reprint from 
Southern Workman. 

Puitirps, U. B. American Negro Slavery, Chapters XII and XIII. 

Stone, A. H. Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 81-125. 

Taytor, H. C. Decline of the Landowning Farmer in England. 

United States Bureau of Education, 1916. Negro Education in the 
United States, Vol. I., Chapter VII. 

WASHINGTON, B. T. Story of the Negro, Chapter II. 

Woorter, T. J., Jr., and FisHer, Isaac. Codperation in Southern 
Communities, Chapter III. 

Woorter, T. J., Jk. Negro Migration, Part I, Chapters I, II, and IV. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1, What is the relation of farm tenancy in the South and in 
other sections? (See Bizzell, “‘“Farm Tenancy in the United 
States,” pp. 117-127, and United States Census of Agriculture.) 


2. What changes in relation to white neighbors have been 
caused by the growth of tenancy and ownership among Negroes? 


96 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


8. Discuss the relation of the Negro farm owner to the com- 
munity. Is his status desirable? 


4, Review the discussion of migration in Chapter III and 
discuss the relation of farm tenancy to migration. 


5. What can the Negroes themselves do to better their agri- 
cultural status and what aid can be extended to them? 


6. Enumerate the factors in which the interests of the tenant 
and landlord are in harmony. 


7. If you are familiar with a town where Negro farmers trade, 
report on the following conditions: Is there a difference in 
cash and credit prices charged by merchants? What interest 
is charged on open accounts? What interest on mortgage 
loans? If you are in a city, secure opinions on these points from 
bankers. 


8. Study a county to determine the extent to which Negroes 
enter into codperative movements; (a) to control farm pests; 
(6) to promote codperative buying; (c) to promote codperative 
marketing. 


CHAPTER VI 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 


Though agriculture has long been of dominant importance 
in the economic life of the Negroes, there have always been 
a few in the skilled trades. All the stately ante-bellum 
mansions of the South stand as monuments to the skill of 
Negro carpenters and masons. Many slaves purchased 
their freedom by the practice of a craft. Soon after eman- 
cipation a few began to drift cityward, and when the great 
European war opened the door of opportunity to all who 
could work, many more Negroes moved to town. The 
1920 census showed 3,000,000 of these city-dwelling colored 
people. These men traverse the whole scale of American 
life. Common laborers and domestics form the largest 
proportion, but there are a number in the skilled trades and 
quite a few in the professions and in business. In short, 
colored leadership in professional and financial lines, like 
the leadership of the white population, is centering in cities. 

The manner in which these city dwellers earn their living 
tells two things. It indicates the extent to which they in- 
fluence the productivity of the cities, especially Southern 
cities, and it shows the rate at which Negroes have been 
able to rise in the economic scale and demonstrate an 
ability to produce goods and services which they can 
exchange for a respected position in the community. In 

97 ’ 


98 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


other words, the occupations of Negroes are an index of 
their value to the city and of their ability to do things for 
themselves. 

Comparison of the census of occupations of 1920 with 
the census of 1910 shows significant changes in colored 
occupations in the past ten years. 


NUMBER OF NEGROES TEN YEARS OF AGE AND OVER 
GAINFULLY EMPLOYED 


} 





1920 





OccuUPATION a I9I0 
Number Per Cent 
Agriculture Raevs 2,178,888 45.2 2,893,375 
Mines, quarries, manufacturing, 

And mechanicalivis: win ae 960,039 20.0 692,506 
Domestic and personal service . . 1,064,590 22.0 1,122,231 
TYansportationy.' wy aha ee "312,421 6.5 255,069 
PETEUGH SOV RLe fetileiion Uae ot Caen 140,467 2.8 119,491 
Buble service 4vesiiat te eae mene 50,552 1.0 22,382 
Protessionag es: tho) ae Uw Oe aoe i 80,183 1.7 67,245 
CICHCHL Ty oe MOR Cece te tetra 37,011 8 19,336 


Thus the amazing shift from agriculture commented 
upon in the previous chapter stands out. It is to be 
remembered that in 1865 Negroes were nearly all employed 
in agriculture. In 1920, for the first time less than half the 
Negroes were employed on the farm. Domestic service 
shows another slight decrease but still occupies almost a 
fourth of the colored people. Another fourth is engaged 
in mining, quarrying, manufacturing, mechanical, and 
transportation pursuits, while a bare twentieth are scattered 
in the other occupations. 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 99 


DoMESTIC SERVICE 


In point of numbers domestic service occupies more than 
any city occupation and includes nearly a fourth of all 
colored people. Here the contacts between the races are 
most numerous, and these contacts are so intimate that 
they have great weight in determining race relations. The 
Black Mammy affection of the past generation arose from 
these contacts, and much of the friction and impatience of 
the present day arises from inefficiency in the kitchen, in 
the laundry, or in nursing duties. 

These domestic service relations have changed greatly 
since the Civil War. In slavery the highest types were 
hand-picked for domestic service, and, as ‘‘dwellers in the 
big house,” they were the aristocrats of the slave plantation. 
When freed, however, it was natural that these more able 
and more advantaged Negroes should become the leaders 
of their people. —The women married and remained at home 
and the men became the preachers, teachers, and business 
men. An intermediate class became the skilled and semi- 
skilled workers and a low class was left in domestic service. 
The wages paid these servants are considerably below the 
scale paid servants in other parts of the country, which is 
an additional reason why only the untrained are attracted 
to service. 

Many good housewives receive all their impressions of 
the Negro race through contacts with their own house serv- 
ants. Much misinformation about the race is gathered 
from this low-class element. A rise in the standards of the 
colored servant class would go far toward restoring some of 
the strong affection which existed between the races at the 


100 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


South in ante-bellum days, and which has been immortal- 
ized in the literature of the period. 

The present output of schools giving specialized domestic 
science courses is, however, hardly adequate to supply the 
demand for teachers of this subject in the public schools. 
The actual effect of these courses upon work in the kitchen 
has, therefore, been indirect. It has come through the public 
school pupils who have received a smattering course. Some 
successful efforts have been made to train cooks on the job 
in night and afternoon classes. This activity is one which 
should appeal strongly to public school authorities. As 
yet, however, only a few of the colored schools are supplied 
either with teachers or equipment to handle such classes 
successfully. In the few cases where these extension courses 
have been offered to cooks, both the servants and the house- 
wives have been well pleased with the results. 

Because character is so strong a factor in training for 
domestic service, there can be no hope for a rapid improve- 
ment in the average domestic until the general level of the 
family life of the masses is raised. For this reason house- 
wives should be far more solicitous as to the home and 
neighborhood conditions in which their servants live. 
The effect of domestic service contact on race relations is 
so direct that the improvement of the character of domestic 
service is also worthy of the careful attention of Negro 
leaders. . , 

One of the distressing features of domestic service is that 
young women are sometimes lacking in adequate moral 
protection. Their hours are long and they are away from 
their homes a great part of the day, often returning late 
at night. Married women with families also hesitate to 


PRODUCING IN CITIES IOI 


enter domestic service because the duties keep them away 
from home all day. It is not at all uncommon to see little 
tots on the street locked out of the house for the day while 
the mother is away at work. Often a mere baby of a few 
months is left in the charge of a child only a few years old. 
Sometimes they are locked out and exposed to all the 
dangers of the street and sometimes they are locked in and 
exposed to the dangers of a sudden fire. In either event 
their chances for health and morality are greatly impaired 
and under this haphazard relationship they grow up ne 
knowing the meaning of the word mother. 

This situation could be mitigated by the erection of 
day nurseries and kindergartens. Very few Southern public 
school systems have colored kindergartens, and the develop- 
ment of day nurseries has not received the aid which it 
deserves from Southern housewives. A notable example 
is furnished by the Gate City Free Kindergarten Associa- 
tion of Atlanta. For a number of years a group of pro- 
gressive and unselfish colored women who felt this need 
have supported three free kindergartens in neglected settle- 
ments. Two rooms, a worker, and some play apparatus 
constitute the necessary equipment. As the public schools 
assume the kindergarten activities, the institutions are 
converted into day nurseries for the younger children. It 
is only very recently that this band of colored women have 
received from white people any material aid in this project 
which is of distinct benefit to the whole community. 

The great need is that domestic service be made more of 
a vocation and regarded as such by the housewife. The 
women’s section of the Commission on Interracial Coépera- 
tion recommended that “‘all necessary steps be taken to 


102 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


insure the health and cleanliness of those who engage 
therein and to provide adequate safeguards for the moral 
protection of the girls and women who make their homes 
on the premises of their employers.” This care on the part 
of employers, together with greater emphasis from Negro 
leaders on the value of character in domestic service, more 
effort to develop training courses in domestic science, and 
to develop kindergartens, day nurseries, and playgrounds 
will all reflect in improvement of the colored domestic. 


WoMEN IN INDUSTRY 


Between 1910 and 1920 there was a shrinkage of 440,000 
in the number of women engaged in agriculture and a small 
decrease in the number engaged in domestic service. The 
great majority of this half million women have married and 
found homes in which they can remain and devote their 
attention to rearing families. Some of this loss in agriculture 
and domestic service, however, is offset by the entrance 
of colored women into industrial pursuits. 

The European war and the post-war expansion in in- 
dustry opened lines of industrial opportunity to colored 
girls as it did to white girls. Up to 1910 only 10,467 colored 
women were listed in trade and transportation and 81,258 
in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. By 1920 a 
remarkable increase was shown. The number in each group 
had doubled. 

An investigation made by the United States Department 
of Labor in 1919 showed that these women were working 
at many different processes and under very different working 
conditions. The Report of the Chicago Commission on 
Race Relations, made at the peak of the labor demand in 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 103 


1920, showed many more women at work in industry than 
in 1910. The principal increases had been in sewers and 
sewing-machine operators, slaughtering- and packing-house 
operatives, box making, tanneries, clerical occupations, 
and laundries. A few months later, however, in a period 
of industrial depression, many of these women were not 
retained. The commission reports : 


Women’s work presents a very discouraging outlook. 
Hundreds of needle workers are out of employment by the 
closing of many of the smaller shops which employed colored 
girls. Immigrant white girls are said to be consuming much 
of the work offered to domestics. Colored women seem, in 
most cases, as reluctant as ever to accept domestic employ- 
ment. 


In summarizing its report the Department of Labor 
Bulletin stated : 


So far as the situation may be regarded as peculiar to the 
Negro woman, it may be said that she has been accepted, in 
the main, as an experiment. Her admittance to a given occu- 
pation or plant has been conditioned upon no other workers 
being available, and her continuance frequently hinged upon 
the same. She was usually given the less desirable jobs. The 
Negro woman worker, being new to industry, has to learn the 
lessons of routine and regularity. The attitude both of the 
employer and of the other workers toward women workers 
was one of uncertainty. 


At best therefore, the position of Negro women in 
industry is precarious in the North. In the South they are 
rarely employed in industries managed by white people 
except in laundries, tobacco factories, and peanut-product 
factories. There is one overall factory in Atlanta which 


104 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


has, for some time, operated entirely with colored women 
workers. The management is pleased with the results. 
The increasing number of Negro businesses offer a field for 
ambitious young colored women as well as young men. 
Banks, toilet-goods companies, and insurance companies 
have a growing army of employees. 

Up to the present time the problems of shop management 
seem to have constituted the chief bars to the progress of 
the colored woman in industry. Difficulty in mixing colored 
and white women employees, difficulty in securing able 
and sympathetic supervision, and difficulty in arranging 
suitable working conditions, such as dressing rooms, toilets, 
housing, and recreation, make the task of utilizing colored 
girls complicated. When these difficulties are obviated, 
the experience of employers on the whole appears to be 
that the services of colored women are satisfactory. 

For a well-educated or skillful girl to be forced to work 
as a domestic or remain idle no doubt involves a great 
economic waste which could be conserved by judiciously 
developing opportunities for the employment of colored 
women in industry. The entrance of numbers of older 
women into industry is, on the other hand, a tendency to 
be discouraged because the colored people, even more than 
the white people, need home-makers, women who can 
remain away from the factory and devote their attention 
to rearing moral, intelligent, and thrifty families. 


UNSKILLED LABOR 


The Negro unskilled laborer is constantly in demand in 
both Northern and Southern cities. Of the million three 
hundred thousand in mining, manufacturing and mechanical 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 105 


pursuits, transportation, and public service, over a million 
are unskilled. Here one finds the chronically ‘‘ worthless”’ 
city Negro and here also is the ambitious man who moves 
in from the country without a trade and subsists on so- 
called ‘‘common labor.” 

These two types are widely divergent and deserve sepa- 
rate treatment. Too often the whole Negro race is indicted 
for the shortcomings of the worst type of shiftless day 
laborer. This class makes up a small proportion of the 
whole, but weighs heavily on the feelings of the employer, 
to whom it is a constant source of irritation. This worth- 
less class works when hungry and when filled cannot be 
made to work either by offer of reward or threat of arrest 
for vagrancy. They may be seen for several days digging 
in the streets; after spending their earnings, they turn up 
in a railroad gang; next they may try some of the heavy 
construction work. They are contented with little and have 
little. They are floaters, and their class furnishes the labor 
turnover which is the bane of the boss’s life. Some manage 
to live partly off the wages of hard working women and 
thereby shun the indignities of labor for many weeks at a 
time. 

That this class forms a small proportion is indicated by 
the fact that the Negro has proved so satisfactory in North- 
ern industry and in certain fields of Southern industry. The 
1919 study of the Department of Labor showed that, in 
unskilled units, the Negroes worked more hours per week 
than white workers in nearly one half the units, the same 
in about one fourth, and less in about a fourth. In answer 
to the question as to whether or not Negroes were am- 
bitious and desired advancement, sixteen employers said 


106 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


“‘ves,”’ five said ‘not inall cases,” five said ‘‘a few,” and eight 
said ‘‘not asa rule.” The exhaustive report of the Chicago 
Commission on Race Relations concludes that “‘Though 
ill-fitted for the keen competition, business-like precision, 
and six-day-week routine of Northern industry, the Southern 
Negro, in spite of these handicaps, has succeeded in Chi- 
cago.’ On the question of efficiency seventy-one employers 
reported their Negro workers equally as efficient as the white, 
and twenty-two considered them less efficient. As to ab- 
senteeism, fifty-seven expressed an opinion that absentee- 
ism was no greater among Negroes than among whites and 
thirty-six reported that it was greater. Twenty-four felt 
that the labor turnover was the same among the Negroes 
as among the white employees and twenty-eight reported 
a greater turnover among Negroes. 

In short, all the investigations that have been made 
seem to indicate that the attitude of the foreman goes a long 
way toward determining the efficiency, regularity, and 
steadiness of Negro labor. A sympathetic foreman who 
knows how to get along gets steady and efficient service, 
while in the case of a prejudiced foreman the colored worker 
responds with grudging and irregular service. 

Although the years of the World War, and the years 
immediately following, were periods when the pressures 
and rewards for labor were very high, still the measurable 
success of the Negro worker shows that the loafers were in 
the small minority in the industrial centers. There are 
probably a larger number in the small towns of the South 
where the population is recruited fresh from the surrounding 
country, where labor is still casual, and where the require- 
ments for subsistence are less stringent. 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 107 


Quite aside from any temporary effects of high wages or 
high prices, there are two sets of forces which conspire 
against the ‘professional loafer,” and which have tended 
greatly to increase the proportion of steady, conscientious 
colored workmen. The most important comes from the 
steadier groups of the Negro population. Increasing moral- 
ity makes it more difficult for the loafer to receive financial 
aid from women through sentiment. More education and 
the resulting rise in the standard of living make it harder 
for him to keep up appearances without labor; and a 
change in the attitude of Negro leaders, a growing insist- 
ence upon sobriety and industry as the hallmarks of respec- 
tability, puts upon the idler an increasing social pressure. 

Booker Washington’s insistence upon the dignity of labor 
has had much to do with this change. At the time when he 
staked his chances for the leadership of his people upon this 
philosophy it was a courageous thing to do because the 
masses of Negroes had learned to associate labor with 
slavery and believed that, by some mysterious process, 
emancipation had freed them from an ignominious necessity 
tolabor. They felt that the world owed them a living which 
was withheld by the white people and dealt out only as 
they could work or cajole it out of them. But Tuskegee, 
Hampton, and the scores of offshoot schools which have 
trained tradesmen and emphasized character have made a 
real impression on this attitude toward work. 

The other set of forces which tends to elevate the 
standard of Negro labor comes from the white employer 
class. At a time when the greatest need of the South is for 
labor to till its idle fields and develop its infant industries, 
loafing becomes almost criminal. Foremen become more 


108 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


expert in weeding out the floaters and gradually the man 
who likes to work three days and rest four, finds it harder and 
harder to get back on the pay roll, and the number of sober, 
industrious, unskilled laborers increases. Upon these sober, 
industrious black laborers, the Southern towns depend, 
almost wholly, for the performance of the heavy work which 
is necessary for their prosperity. 

Manufacturing is gaining more prominence in Southern 
economic life. Forward-looking leaders are beginning to 
see that a perfectly balanced prosperity will depend upon 
the development of Southern industry so that there will 
be a more equal adjustment between the country and the 
city populations. To attain this the South must offer 
attractions to capital. In natural resources the section is 
rich. The timber, clays, marls, limestones, granite, marble, 
coal, ores, and water power make the South one of nature’s 
veritable treasure houses. In labor the South is potentially 
rich. The war experience has proved what can be done to 
raise the standards of colored labor when the task is ap- 
proached with intelligence and sympathy. But, in addition 
to the natural resources and the potential labor supply, 
capital must be attracted from the outside; and to attract 
outside capital the South must convince the industrialists 
of other sections that it offers great opportunities. 

The efficiency of the South’s great labor supply will be 
fully as potent a factor in attracting capital as the richness 
of natural resources. To develop it, the South must do two 
things. First: every means must be used to increase the 
capacity of the individual, Negro and white, through 
education and encouragement. Second: those community 
conditions which are driving the Negroes away to other 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 109 


sections must be corrected. In other words the industrial 
future of the South is conditioned on better educational 
facilities, more adequate protection, better health, and more 
even-handed justice for the Negro. The South must appeal 
to the Negro laborer as a land of industrial opportunity. 


SKILLED LABOR 


The development of industry and the progress of the 
colored people does not, however, depend so much upon 
the masses of common labor as it does upon the growing 
number of skilled artisans and mechanics. Without this 
group of higher paid workmen as a stimulating example, 
and as a group furnishing leadership, the common laborer 
would feel that there is no hope for his progress or for the 
advancement of his children, and the benumbing clouds of 
hopelessness would settle around him and render his labor a 
heartless and grudging service. The table on the following 
page indicates the lines in which the largest numbers of 
Negroes have risen. 

There were substantial and even rapid increases in the 
industrial trades, especially in foremen, machinists, metal 
molders, and pourers. It is notable, however, that, even in 
a period of great demand for labor, there were substantial 
decreases in several hand trades, including masons, black- 
smiths, dressmakers, and seamstresses (outside of factories). 
This is due largely to the increased competition from white 
skilled workers in the South. 

One of the economic tendencies which alarmed Booker T. 
Washington about 1890, and which tinged all his speeches 
and writings on industrial education, was the increasing 
competition and encroachment by the white man in several 


110 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


lines of skilled labor and business which, immediately after 
the Civil War, were practically monopolized by Negroes. 


NEGROES IN TRADES AND PROFESSIONS 


1920 I9Io 
Teachers) iis) (Phsptritr as: Wis Seek ee Re Yeahs 36,626 29,674 
Preachers . . . ME Ss ee eee 19,571 17,495 
Physicians and gureeons AL AREA ti sep 8 Ae tain 3,495 3,077 
Dentists ua evr: Pere vencat ci a aa meee eE EL? 1,109 478 
‘Trained nurses fri is, 2p Sa ee es Oho 35341 2,433 
‘Lotal) professions sshd asic bn ora ee eh 64,142 53,157 
Carpenters sq) .2414 ae 345243 30,468 
Dressmakers and eater (ine in factors) ; 26,073 38,216 
Machinists and toolmakers . ....... 10,286 35323 
Otherimechanies tories ue er aha iaaka ae 8,990 752 
Masons ti, fee AOR atc a pt mR re 10,609 12,403 
Painters ni. Cecovias Se henge Soe ie Aen Uda 9,432 8,927 
Blacksmiths 04 iciecuit hie tPeikt peat ee ae 8,886 9,837 
PIQSLOTETS VA i. iw ile Cat ens Sul chat een oa ead 7,082 6,175 
ailor and tarloressis vy ie Weir idan ec emenie re — 6,893 5,043 
Metal'molders; pourers,eton) Wisi ieee 6,634 2,221 
Engineers (other than locomotive). . . .. . 6,353 4,857 
Shoemakers (not in factories) . ...... 4,707 3,739 
Foremen (industrial and ae Lite teh ee eh 3,885 1,796 
Bhimbers, (5 G40. acyl Gel tam agen: 3,516 2,285 
Furnace men, erelit men, Wales 1 Aes MEE eh |e 3,236 3,206 
Bakers yeah: Cra its ae Ove bw eet aa Meae ale occ 3,164 2,125 
Printing trades . ... PAG du cy ae th WY 1,719 1,318 
Filers, grinders, polishers, etd. Ui at bk, Ws TEA at eee 1,618 441 
Electricians .. Pica a he Lemna atid We Whe af ats 1,342 703 
Builders and caneticiees Nad tad ah Nn a 1,454 3,293 


Using this as a warning, he urged industrial education, 
strict attention to duty, efficiency, and thrift as the only 
salvation of colored skilled workers. Between 1890 and 
1900 the Negro actually lost ground in such important 


PRODUCING IN CITIES Til 


trades as carpentry, plastering, and blacksmithing. Race 
prejudice, difficulties with trades unions, increasing num- 
bers of white skilled workers, and, in some cases, lack of 
proper application and efficiency on the part of the colored 
workers themselves, militated against them. 

The effectiveness of the propaganda of Washington and 
his school of leaders is shown, however, by the fact that 
this tendency was arrested about 1900 and the 1910 cen- 
sus showed these skilled tradesmen increasing in numbers. 
The 1920 census again shows substantial gains in colored 
carpenters, plasterers, painters, and plumbers, as against 
losses only in blacksmithing and masonry. The sons of the 
men whose skill fashioned the stately buildings of the old 
South evidently have a fine opportunity to continue in the 
building trades if they render a high grade of service, and in 
addition new opportunities to enter the factory trades have 
been offered. 

The skill and stamina of colored workers in other lines 
than the building trades is attested by their conduct under 
the pressure which the emergencies of national defense 
placed upon war-time workers. Records in two important 
operations were broken by Negroes. Edward Burwell, the 
Negro pile-driving captain, with a crew of eleven, broke 
the world’s record by driving 220 sixty-five-foot piles 
in nine hours and five minutes. Most of the work was 
done in a steady downpour of rain and the log of his crew 
shows several mechanical difficulties which slowed them 
down during the day, but these were overcome and the work 
attacked with renewed vigor. His record was fifty-five piles 
ahead of the previous record. In the plant of the Bethlehem 
Steel Corporation at Sparrow’s Point, a Negro crew broke 


112 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


the record for driving rivets. One of the gang, Charles 
Knight, drove 4875 three-quarter-inch rivets in a nine- 
hour day. Such work is manifestly a very valuable asset to 
industry and the work of thousands of others who did not 
attain such publicity but who, nevertheless, measured up to 
the standard of a full day’s work, well done, is of great 
economic value. 

But the Negro skilled worker faces many difficulties in 
earning a living. The chief of these arise from race preju- 
dice. The wages paid the colored worker are often lower 
than those paid the white worker for the same service. On 
piecework he is often assigned the more difficult patterns 
with the result that his output is smaller. In trades where 
some processes are higher paid than others (such as rough- 
and smooth-stone masonry) he sometimes cannot gain 
access to those which pay better. All investigations of the 
position of the Negro in industry show that there is a 
wide difference in policy as to the payment of equal wages, 
employment for equal hours, and employment in similar 
processes. The Negro’s treatment in these respects is 
largely dependent upon the sense of justice of individual 
employers. 


THE NEGRO AND ORGANIZED LABOR 


Many of the difficulties of Negro workers arise from their 
relation to the labor organizations. But the report of the 
Chicago commission points out “There is a gradually in- 
creasing sympathetic understanding by unionists of the 
struggle of Negroes to overcome their handicaps, and an 
increasing realization of the importance to the union of 
organizing them. Negroes are, themselves, showing more 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 113 


interest in efforts toward organization, but there is still 
much mutual suspicion and resentment in their relations.” 
Of the 116 national and international unions studied in 
Chicago, 104 admit Negroes and 12 do not. 

In the past the trouble has been largely because of the 
attitude of local unions. Though the American Federation 
and many national and international labor bodies have 
declared policies of non-discrimination, the local unions 
have been autonomous and have often excluded Negroes. 
This exclusion from local unions has applied especially in 
the North. In the South, where Negroes have always 
formed such a large proportion of the labor supply, unions, 
when organized, have usually included Negro and white 
workers in separate, codperating locals. 

Exclusion from the union has often forced the Negro into 
the position of a strike breaker. When he has been denied 
admission a strike presents the first opportunity to the 
Negro to enter that line of work. The ensuing clashes, 
occurring in the superheated atmosphere of a strike, have 
left bitterness and misunderstanding on both sides. The 
Chicago stockyards strike of 1904 was broken by Negroes 
and the investigation of the commission on race relations, 
almost twenty years afterward, revealed lingering traces of 
the bitterness which arose during that strike. Of the many 
examples of this kind the steel strike of 1920 was probably 
the largest. 

Labor unions have been forced to organize Negroes 
because it has been impossible for them to ignore this great 
mass of laborers, who, if unorganized, would defeat their 
program. As was the case with immigrant foreigners, this 
recognition has been tardy, and its tardiness has aroused 


114 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


suspicions as to the genuineness of the program of or- 
ganized labor. 

At present, however, there are three ways in which the 
unions deal with colored labor : 


1. Organization in separate subordinate locals. 
2. Organization in separate codrdinate locals. 
3. Inclusion in the same local with white laborers. 


The efforts to include them in separate subordinate locals, 
where white grievance committees handle all their griev- 
ances, are not successful, and only a few locals follow this 
policy. The Negroes are suspicious of such efforts. The 
organization of separate coérdinate locals is undertaken in 
some cases because of the preference of the colored workers 
themselves, and sometimes because of unwillingness of white 
workers to admit Negroes. In either case, when the locals 
are truly codrdinate, and where they coéperate in all matters 
through fair representation on district councils, the colored 
workers seem satisfied with the results obtained. When 
organized in the same local union the relationships seem to 
be entirely satisfactory unless the local attempts some social 
function in addition to its business transaction. 

This adjustment of the Negro and organized labor is one 
of the most important phases of race relations because some 
of the most violent friction arises from economic contacts, 
especially during periods of unemployment. In such periods 
the Negro at work is the target of the jealousy of the white 
man out of work, and the idle Negro is the scapegoat for 
crime in the community. Many employers follow the just 
policy of laying men off according to seniority, regardless 
of color. But the white man thrown out of work in this 





PRODUCING IN CITIES 115 


way often feels resentment toward the Negro retained, even 
though the colored man had been working for the plant a 
long time. On the other hand some employers, when slack 
times come, lay off all their Negroes first, regardless of 
seniority. This creates a deep resentment and feeling of 
injustice among the Negroes. 

Unemployment, with the resultant friction and bitterness, 
was one of the major factors in the riots of East St. Louis, 
Coatesville, Springfield, and Chicago. Such serious results 
are to be guarded against at all costs, and one safeguard is 
for the employer and the white laborer to recognize the 
justice of retaining men on the basis of their length of service 
in a plant, whether they are white or colored. 


NEGRO OR FOREIGNER ? 


The situation which confronts the United States is briefly 
this: Industry periodically exerts a brisk demand for labor. 
Formerly this labor was plentifully supplied by immigration 
from Europe, but more recently, when immigration was cut 
off, first by war and later by congressional legislation, indus- 
try drew on the farms of America for white and colored 
labor. This raises the question as to whether the country’s 
need for labor is to be supplied by lowering the immigration 
bars again or by increasing the efficiency of the individual 
laborers now in the United States. 

The migration of the Negro from Southern farms has 
made many Southern Democrats feel that possibly European 
immigration should be encouraged to alleviate this situation. 
The movement of Negroes from Southern farms is, however, 
no more serious than the movement of native American 
_ boys and girls from the farms of New England and the 


116 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Middle West. This is a question of broad national signifi- 
cance and one which is too fundamental to be decided on the 
basis of racial or sectional feeling. 

There can be no doubt that the Negroes have been in 
America so many generations that they are more Ameri- 
can in their ideals and adherence to American institutions 
than is generally realized. In the first place they speak the 
language, and any manufacturer who has had to employ 
interpreters to issue orders to his foreign laborers will attest 
the value of English-speaking labor. Again the Negro has 
more of the American attitude of employee to boss than 
has the European, especially the Slav, immigrant. Thus in 
many ways the Negro is an American laborer and a real 
asset to American industry, if only efforts are directed 
toward developing his good qualities. Talks with a number 
of manufacturers will convince the skeptic that, compared 
with the non-English-speaking foreigner, the Negro is the 
more valuable asset to industry. The full development of 
the capabilities of the five million Negro laborers will, in a 
great measure, aid the country to develop its agriculture and 
industry without the strain on American ideals and institu- 
tions which is imposed by the effort to assimilate hundreds of 
thousands of immigrants of different cultures, many of whom 
come only to accumulate a little money and then return to 
their native land and never have any attachment to, or 
abiding interest in, the United States. 


CONSTRUCTIVE LABOR POLICY 


There is, however, a great need for more knowledge and 
a@ more sympathetic understanding between agricultural 
and industrial leaders as a basis of a labor policy which will 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 117 


allow industry to expand normally without crippling the 
farmer. As it operates at present, industry is taking thou- 
sands of laborers from the farm, and this process is going on 
faster than the farmer can adjust himself to it by more inten- 
sive cultivation and use of machinery. All agencies, both 
national and state, should therefore devote particular atten- 
tion to this balance of agricultural and industrial labor, 
especially as it applies to Negro labor. 

A good beginning along this line was made by the federal 
government during the war when it installed a Bureau of 
Negro Economics in the United States Department of 
Labor, and placed at its head a scholarly and competent 
colored man. This policy did not, however, continue more 
than a year or two before this man was replaced by a typical 
Negro politician with no training and no real interest in the 
laboring conditions of his people. 

The action of state departments of labor has been almost 
entirely confined to Southern states, where it has been 
limited to the administration of laws directed against the 
operation of labor agents. These laws have required an 
excessive license fee from each man shipping labor outside 
the state. Such action is repressive and extremely short- 
sighted. It is designed to interfere with the free movement 
of labor and, in the long run, it reacts against industry 
within the South. Construction companies in the South 
desiring labor to carry on their work are often seriously 
hampered by this restriction against recruiting their men in 
neighboring states. The northward migration is hardly 
affected by these laws, since Negroes continue to go whether 
solicited by labor agents or not. Such laws also make it 
extremely difficult to operate employment bureaus in 


118 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Southern cities where such bureaus would be most valuable 
in placing colored labor. 

An agency in the Eastern and Middle Western industrial 
districts which is proving valuable in adjusting the Negro to 
industry is the National Urban League. This organization 
operates employment bureaus in a number of industrial 
centers and places thousands of colored workmen. In addi- 
tion they study working conditions carefully and endeavor 
to improve them. They also deliver shop talks to the work- 
men and endeavor to raise their efficiency. They are con- 
stantly on the lookout for new lines of work into which 
Negroes may enter and prove their usefulness. 

The United States Department of Labor could render 
signal service in this field by extending its free employment 
service to colored people as rapidly as possible. In 1923 
almost a million and a half job seekers were placed by the 
government offices. Only a few branches, however, handle 
colored applications. This leaves the jobless colored man 
dependent upon his own devices or upon the commercial 
employment agencies, many of which charge exorbitant 
rates. In periods when Negro laborers are shifting so rapidly 
from country to city such bureaus are greatly needed as 
aids for fitting the rural Negro into the economic life of 
the city. 

The task of adjusting the colored labor supply to Ameri- 
can industry, of striking a balance between Southern agricul- 
ture and Northern industry, and of determining the relation 
of the Negro to the immigrant, to the union, and to the 
industrial community is one of so many complications and 
such vast scope that it demands the full and intelligent 
codperation of all agencies, — federal, state, and private. 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 119 


THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS 


In business, the Negro has also made most creditable 
advances. Slavery was not a training calculated to inculcate 
the thrift, foresight, and executive ability necessary for busi- 
ness success. Yet,soon after emancipation, numbers of small 
Negro business enterprises were launched. They were mainly 
barber shops, catering establishments, and restaurants. 

These early businesses catering to white trade have, how- 
ever, almost entirely disappeared. White people entered the 
same lines of business, and drove most of their small Negro 
competitors out by the application of superior managerial 
ability and more capital. Prejudice against patronizing 
Negroes also played its part. Many of the Negro proprietors 
continued in business catering to the trade of Negroesinstead 
of the trade of white people, but many were driven into other 
lines. Gone are the famous Negro caterers and restaurateurs 
of the former generation. They have been compelled either 
to operate restaurants for their own people or to accept posi- 
tions as waiters. Most of the famous old barber shops have 
also been replaced by white barbers, and, with only a few 
exceptions, Negro barber shops are for Negro patronage. 

A new type of Negro business has, however, replaced the 
old. Negroes now have their own banks, insurance com- 
panies, newspapers, and real estate agents. Prejudice, while 
operating against the old type of business, has operated in 
favor of the new. Refusal of old line life insurance com- 
panies to insure Negroes has led to the establishment of sep- 
arate Negro companies. Discourtesies and inconveniences 
in banks and retail houses have led to the establishment 

of these businesses by Negroes for Negroes. 


120 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


One of the most prominent colored business men of the 
country tells of the time when he entered the largest shoe 
store in his town to purchase shoes. When he had selected 
his style the clerk wrapped up the pair of shoes and handed 
them to him. He said, of course, that he would like to try 
them on to see whether or not they fitted, before taking 
them. He was informed, however, that that store did not 
try on shoes for Negroes. On passing out of the store he 
observed, across the way, the bank in which that store 
kept its money and in which he had quite a large account. 
He immediately resolved that his people should have a bank 
so that their financial power could be mobilized and they 
could develop retail businesses of their own. 

The census of 1920 indicates the following distribution of 
principal Negro businesses : 


NUMBER OF 
BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS 

Hotel keepers 'and‘managers (i) 9/7 cies ae 1,020 
Restaurant and linth room crs, ate) ying 7,511 
Barbers o1 4 wie Mate 2,500 
Hairdressers and manicures nd toilet Geode’ mat 3,500 
shoemakers' (hot an factories) pacar eo hi 2,700 
Retailers/\i) 0). SMR TGPe sis tame 23,526 
Bankers, brokers, a Pore ener nas pln tees 142 
Uhdertacers Bi Wh tabi) IER EMO MA ROR TaN oe cia teed 1,558 
Realestates awa eey aint hae ae ited er als ae se Nie ee 500 
negtrical proprietorsys ici sau cadee came tye! Vie evans 185 
Tailoring . . ULAR ELAS COMET LES Wier aee® /atGerhule 4,000 
Laundry Bropneire Te Ae) AMS lay We 199 
Insurance .. CORR aM phe a eS pote As 173 

Totaly co) career ae eae MTT Re ee ms he go AOD 40,686 


Retailers, restaurateurs, barbers, tailors, shoemakers, | 


and undertakers are still the most numerous. Their success 


PRODUCING IN CITIES 121 


is all the more notable because it has been won in spite of 
the fact that they have been compelled to operate with the 
assistance of employees chosen from a people untrained in 
business, and they have been compelled to deal with cus- 
tomers of the same type. They do not have the organized 
credit facilities and codperative association which are avail- 
able to the white business man. 

In point of numbers the banks, insurance companies, and 
real estate offices are few, but their significance in the Negro 
business world is great both because of the amount of money 
they have been able to accumulate and because of the service 
which they are in a position to render their people. 

The mortality among Negroes was so high immediately 
after emancipation that the larger insurance companies 
refused all Negroes as risks, and many of them did not even 
accept Negroes for industrial insurance. As a result Negro 
secret orders sprang up, which in nearly every instance 
emphasized the sick benefit and industrial insurance fea- 
ture. These lodges were the training ground for Negroes in 
insurance, and later separate insurance companies were 
developed. The Negro Year Book lists sixty insurance 
companies, aside from the fraternal orders. These companies 
have assets of about $6,500,000, with an annual income of 
about $9,000,000, and a total insurance in force of about 
$100,000,000. The accumulation of this great sum of money 
not only provides security for the thousands of small policy 

holders in these companies, but also swells bank deposits 
and provides capital for mortgages and conservative real 
estate investments. 

_ The masses of colored people are thoroughly converted 
to insurance. In fact, among the lower classes too much 






122 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


‘sickness and burial”’ insurance is carried. It is not at all 
unusual to find a poor widow who subsists on hand laundry, 
carrying four or five of these “‘ten cent a week”’ policies. 
The history of Negro banking is filled with tragic failures 
and yet there are a number of strong, well-established 
colored banks which are serving the race. In 1922 there 
were 74 Negro banks with combined resources of about 
$20,000,000. Some of the failures of the past have been due 
to the fact that colored banks, in times of stringency, do not 
have the reserves to fall back upon which are available to 
white banks. There has, however, been a recent tendency 
upon the part of white banks to be more liberal in aiding 
colored banks to tide over their periods of stress, provided 
they have been organized and operated along sound lines. 
Real estate is another field which offers profit and a chance 
for genuine service to the colored business man. The hous- 
ing conditions for colored people are so poor, and profiteer- 
ing in high rents so universal, that the man who opens sub- 
divisions for colored people and sells at a reasonable profit 
makes money, and at the same time serves a real com- 
munity need. Up to date, the colored owners of real estate 
have, however, imitated their white contemporaries by 
charging their own people all that the market would bear. © 
A few instances of public-spirited real estate men are, how- 
ever, to be found. The most notable of these have been | 
the Service Realty Company of Atlanta and Augusta, 
Georgia ; The Schmidlapp Foundation of Cincinnati, Ohio ; 
and the Titustown Development Company of Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia. ‘These companies have purchased and developed 
large tracts. Neat homes with space around them and — 
attractively laid out yards have been sold on easy terms 








PRODUCING IN CITIES 123 


to colored people. They have usually made comfortable 
profits and at the same time have rendered a genuine ser- 
vice in relieving the congestion of the colored sections. 

As colored business men develop, a new factor is injected 
into colored leadership. The business man is more in touch 
with the economic life of his people and is usually more 
practical than the teacher or the preacher. He thus pro- 
vides a balance wheel for the colored community and devel- 
ops practical methods of encouraging thrift and economic 
independence. 

The National Negro Business League, organized by Booker 
T. Washington, with local branches all over the country, is 
doing much to give these business men a morale, and to pro- 
vide opportunities for them to profit by their colleagues’ 
experiences and to work out methods of codperation. 

There are, therefore, many reasons for encouraging the 
Negro business men. They not only constitute a conserva- 
tive and valuable leadership group, but they also encourage 
their people in thrift. Their operations create clerical employ- 
ment for thousands of young colored men and women. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


_ Epstein, A. The Negroes of Pittsburgh. 

_ Harrison and Associates, Russell Sage Foundation, Public Employ- 
| ment offices, pp. 605-610. 

Hart, A. B. The Southern South, Chapter X. 

_ Haynes, Georce. The Negro at Work in New York City. 
_Murpny, E. G. The Present\South, pp. 78-85. 

Ovincton, M. W. Half a Man, pp. 95-105. 

Report of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, ‘‘The Negro in 
Chicago,’”’ Chapter VIII. 

United States Department of Labor. ‘Negro Migration, 1916- 
1917,” pp. 129-138. 


124 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


United States Department of Labor. “‘The Negro at Work during 
the War and Reconstruction.” 

WASHINGTON, B. T. The Negro in Business. 

WasuincTon, B. T. The Story of the Negro, Chapter III. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. From the economic standpoint what occupations engage 
the ‘‘upper tenth” of the Negro population? 


2. What occupational opportunities cause an excess of females 
in certain cities and of males in others? (List twenty cities 
from the census and study sex and age distribution of the 
Negro population.) 

3. From Department of Labor Bulletin (‘The Negro at Work 
during the World War and Reconstruction”), from the Chicago 
Report, and by observation of conditions in a particular com- 
munity, determine the extent to which Negroes receive lower 
pay than white people for the same type of work. 


4, Discuss the burden which domestic service places upon 
the community in day nursery problems, orphanage problems, 
and problems of juvenile delinquency. 


5. Study the table of occupations in 1910 and 1920. Is the 
drift toward the mechanical or non-mechanical trades? What 
light does this throw on the former belief that Negroes ‘could 
not be trained to handle machinery ? 


6. Discuss the relationship of the Negro to trade unions. In 
what way has prejudice led the unions to injure their own cause? 
7. Outline a constructive policy for dealing with Negro 


labor, by the labor organizations, by the federal government, 
by state governments, and by local communities. 


8. What is the effect of race prejudice on the growth of Negro > 
business ? 


9. What is the effect of the industrial movement on living © 
conditions of Negroes? 


CHAPTER VII 


LAW AND ORDER 


In the successful adjustment of the legal relationships of 
the two races democracy is vitally involved. The right toa 
fair trial by an impartial jury of peers is one of the bed- 
rocks upon which freedom rests, and if it cannot be pre- 
served when the courts serve two races, then democracy 
itself rests on quicksand. The problem of legal justice is, 
therefore, fully as important to the white race as to the 
Negro race. Any tendency to weaken the feeling that the 
court system is entirely impartial, unaffected by passion 
or prejudice, and meticulously just, or any tendency to 
strengthen the feeling that the court can be biased or made 
the instrument of a particular class, is a tendency which 
may wreck society. Like the machinery of government, the 
machinery of justice is entirely in the hands of the white 
man. He makes the laws which courts enforce, he has 
evolved the court system, he furnishes the judges, court 
officers, and juries. It is therefore his great responsibility, 
in face of any difficulty, to render justice through them. 

The descendants of the Anglo-Saxon have gained a su- 
premacy in many lands because they have been supremely 
fair and supremely just. A departure from fair and just 
policies will inevitably sap their moral stamina and endanger’ 
their hard-won supremacy, for supremacy is not anindividual 
or a racial heritage. It must be constantly maintained. 

I25 


126 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


NEGRO CRIME RATE 


The necessity of dealing with a large number of backward 
colored people puts a strain upon the courts. The pressure 
of prejudice and jealousy, and the desire by some classes of 
white people to exploit, often leads to injustice toward the 
Negro. On the other hand, the presence of large numbers 
of Negroes, as yet poorly adapted to the codes and institu- 
tions of the white civilization in which they live, brings 
problems of law and morals to both races. The task of pre- 
serving law and order is therefore twofold, consisting of 
efforts to reduce the crime among the irresponsible class of 
Negroes, and to reduce the violence and injustice among the 
irresponsible class of white people. In fact, the Negro race 
has a large, but not excessive, criminal element, but, with 
the exception of thefts, the great majority of his crimes are 
committed against other Negroes. A study of the crime 
rate indicates that their criminality is not attributable to 
racial tendencies so much as it is to living conditions. 

The following figures indicate the extent and something 
of the distribution of Negro criminality. 


PRISONERS AND JUVENILE DELINQUENTS: COMMITMENT 
RATES PER 100,000 OF EACH RACE, 1910 


WHITE NEGRO 
it aldin isdn veh bet aah aaa lial hae aL ead 467 1,102 
PURE SOUL ay a ak owen ae eR) ek eae alcrdes QBS iy 880 
seu OL kp aria bial en tae pa ed 503 2,836 
SERIE) VV CSOT eee ie eh eer Fanner 816 3,667 


Thus one out of every hundred Negroes and one of every 
two hundred and fifty whites were committed to prison in 
tg10. The rate for Negroes is more than twice the rate for 


| 
\ 


LAW AND ORDER 127 


white people, but one out of each hundred is not a suff- 
ciently large proportion to warrant branding the race as 
having deep-rooted criminal tendencies. 

In passing, it may be said that the Negro crime rate ap- 
pears higher than the actual amount of criminality because 
of injustices in the courts. It is a notorious fact that in 
many sections the Negro who becomes involved in the toils 
of the law can gain his freedom only by a stroke of fortune 
or by extraordinary effort. The arrest and conviction of 
innocent Negroes, therefore, swells the commitment rate 
beyond the actual volume of crime. 


CAUSES OF CRIME 


The variations in the different sections furnish further 
clews as to the real reasons for Negro crime. The South, 
with a large rural population which has become adapted to 
its situation, has a low crime rate for both white people and 
Negroes. The North and West, where the Negro population 
is largely concentrated in cities and where it has recently 
migrated, have Negro crime rates three and a half and four 
and a half times as high as the South. In the West North- 
Central section, which approaches the South in its propor- 
tion of rural inhabitants, the commitment rate for native 
white people was only 296 per hundred thousand, but the 
commitment rate for foreign-born whites was 550. That is, 
among the migrant whites the crime rate was twice that of 
the natives. These rates of crime among the native and 
foreign born are comparable to those of the white and col- 
ored people in the South. This influence of city life and 
migration on the crime rate is further evident from the 
rates in New England with 630 commitments per 100,000 


128 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


native whites and 1143 for the same number of foreign 
born. In other words, the crime rate among the foreign 
born in New England is higher than the crime rate among 
the Negroes in the United States. 

Another factor in the crime rate is the inadequate care of 
the insane and the feeble-minded. Many of these are not 
confined in institutions. This is especially true of the 
feeble-minded, there being no institution for the segregation 
of the colored cases in the Southern states. A study of the 
inmates of the Georgia penitentiary showed that 60 per cent 
of the Negro inmates were feeble-minded. From this it is 
evident that a proper understanding and care of this element 
of the population would greatly reduce crime. 

The outstanding causes of Negro criminality may, there- 
fore, be said to be: The Negro’s racial background, 7.e., his 
lack of adaptation to the codes and institutions of the white 
race; his migration from country to city; the adverse 
economic and housing conditions surrounding him; and 
feeble-mindedness. Only the last of these is due to inborn 
traits. The others can be minimized by education, pains- 
taking effort to adjust the Negro to American life, and 
humane and modern administration of penal institutions. 

Lack of modern, humane methods of dealing with Negro 
offenders hampers many sections in reducing crime. All 
phases of contact between society and the criminal or sus- 
pect need to be thoroughly safeguarded. Extreme care 
should be taken in making arrests. Those committed to 
jails, penitentiaries, or reformatories should be surrounded, 
in these institutions, with conditions which will tend to 
correct their criminal tendencies rather than with condi- 
tions which tend to debase, brutalize, and increase criminal 


LAW AND ORDER 129 


tendencies. Every effort should be made to return them to 
society as useful citizens. Adequate institutional treatment 
should also be supplemented with modern systems of proba- 
tion and parole. 


LENGTH OF SENTENCE 
In the North and in the South virtually the same propor- 
tion of Negroes are committed for minor offenses, yet there 
is a striking inequality in the length of sentences served. 
The proportion of long sentences in the South is unduly high : 


PER CENT COMMITTED (1910) FOR 


OVER ONE ONE MONTH | ONE MONTH 
YEAR TO ONE YEAR OR LESS 
White commitments 
INOFL I BL t ten ate ae in Celt il 6.9 53-9 39.2 
SOULE Rc borate ray ag 7. 33.8 37.8 28.4 
Negro commitments 
INP Eee nae oe Nd fey Set ity Y, foe 16.0 53-5 30.5 
OUR EUMM TLS Or ET Na tee ah, G } 42.3 40.4 17.4 


Thus almost a half of the Negroes in the South are com- 
mitted for a year or more, while only about a sixth of the 
Northern Negroes are given such a long term; and only a 
sixth of the Southern Negroes are committed for one month 
or less while a third of the Northern commitments are for 
this short period. The fact that the commitments are also 
longer for white people in the South indicates that some of 
this discrepancy in length of sentence is due to a sectional 
rather than a racial difference in administration of justice. 
The purely sectional tendency toimpose longer sentences in 
the South on both races does not, however, fully account for 


130 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


the great proportion of Southern Negroes committed for 
over a year and the very small proportion committed for 
less than a month. 

It indicates a definite tendency on the part of Southern 
courts to impose heavier sentences on the Negro than upon 
white men, and heavier sentences than those imposed by the 
Northern courts. The strikingly small number of commit- 
ments for less than a month is also indicative of a tendency 
on the part of Southern judges to condone or merely repri- 
mand certain peccadillos of the Negro which are punished 
with short imprisonment in the North. In some sections, 
the system of employing convicts on the roads of the county 
in which they are convicted influences court officials and 
judges to impose heavy sentences, but in most instances 
there is an honest belief on the part of the judge that the 
best way to correct the Negro is to follow the method 
applied to children and either merely reprimand and warn, 
or impose a heavy punishment. 


Unjust ARREST 


One of the most persistent complaints of Negroes, North 
and South, arises from the conduct of arresting officers. No 
adequate figures as to arrests are available, but if they could 
be secured, the number of useless arrests of Negroes would 
prove astounding. The fee system, which allows officers a 
fee for each arrest and allots to judges, solicitors, and 
sheriffs a proportion of the court costs of trials, is a vicious 
factor in this useless arrest. | 

The following quotation from a leading Georgia daily 
during the migration indicates that some of the Southern 
communities are waking up to this consideration : 





LAW AND ORDER 131 


Everybody seems to be asleep about what is going on right 
under our noses, — that is, everybody but those farmers who 
waked up on mornings recently to find every Negro over twenty- 
one on their places gone. . . . 

And we go about our affairs as usual — our police raid pool 
rooms for “‘loafing Negroes,’ bring in twelve, and keep them in 
the barracks all night, and next morning find that ten of them 
have steady jobs and were merely there to spend an hour in the 
only indoor recreation they have; our county officers hear of a 
disturbance at a Negro resort and bring in fifty-odd men, women, 
boys, and girls to spend the night in jail, to make a bond at 
1o per cent, to hire lawyers, to mortgage half of two months’ 
pay to get back to their jobs Monday morning, although but 
half a dozen of them could have been guilty of disorderly conduct. 


A Mississippi daily adds the following : 


We allow petty officers of the law to harass and oppress our 
Negro labor, mulcting them of their wages, assessing stiff fines 
on trivial charges, and often they are convicted on charges, 
which if preferred against a white man, would result in prompt 
acquittal. 


Nor are these practices confined to the South. “The fol- 
lowing record of events is traceable in the files of the daily 
papers of a large Northern city which has recently received a 
considerable influx of Negro migrants. There was a period 
of industrial unemployment attended, as usual, by a series 
of thefts and holdups. The chief of police was roundly 
criticized by the “‘out”’ faction for not bringing the thieves 
to justice. He blamed the large number of Negro unem- 
ployed for the situation, and announced that on a certain 
Friday night he would conduct a clean-up of the Negro 
ward. As this announcement was printed on Wednesday 
it is extremely improbable that any criminal remained in 


132 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


that ward to wait for his raid on Friday, nevertheless it was 
conducted. Every Negro pool room was entered and 160 
arrests were made. All but 20 of these were charged with 
the technical offenseof vagrancy. Of the 140 vagrants about 
60 were finally able to show enough money or sufficient 
employment to clear themselves from that charge. The 
other 80 were convicted of vagrancy and released on con- 
dition that they leave town immediately. One of these 
who had no money tried to walk out of town but was 
re-arrested and brought back twice; then he tried stealing 
out on freight trains and was brought back by railroad 
detectives twice, until the judge, in desperation, had one of 
the bailiffs take him in his own car to the city limits. In 
remarking on this, the leading daily said that with such 
brilliant activity on the part of the police department, it 
was a mystery why the thievery and hold-ups continued 
unabated. 

This high-handed arrest of colored people is extremely 
galling to the law-abiding citizens, who often live constantly 
in fear that they, at any time, may be causelessly subjected 
to this humiliation. It cannot be excused on any ground 
other than ignorance and inefficiency of police officers who 
engage in these practices, and indifference of the citizens 
who permit such officers to remain on the job. 


REFORMATION 


As a rule the faults of jails, chain gangs, and penitentiaries 
apply to white and colored alike except that in many jails, 
where the two races are segregated, the Negroes have the 
more unsanitary quarters. Mr. G. Croft Williams of the 
South Carolina Board of Welfare observes that “the average 


LAW AND ORDER 133 


jail is not an exhibition of the citizenry’s cruelty, but of 
their callous neglect. All professions of humanitarianism 
and of the sincere desire to make a better and happier world 
will echo back in hollow mockery as long as our present 
jails stand as their sounding boards.” 

It is not the province of this book to go into the horrors 
of the jails, chain gangs and road camps of some states. 
Experts have painted terrible pictures and reports of official 
investigating committees contain authoritative statements 
as to the exposure, the debasement, the filth, and the in- 
humanity of the surroundings of criminals placed in some 
convict camps. It must be realized that the society which 
places a white man or a black man in such an environment 
for several months can expect nothing else than that he 
return to society more debased and more inclined to crime. 

It is only very recently that the need for special treatment 
for juvenile delinquents has been widely understood, and 
the task of caring for the white juvenile delinquent is much 
further advanced than that of caring for the colored. In 
many instances ignorance of the law, lack of the proper 
place of detention or of the proper machinery for probation 
leads to placing juvenile delinquents in jail alongside of 
hardened criminals. This is not corrective but debasing. 
It does not lessen criminality but brings recruits to the 
criminal ranks. 

Most of the Southern states have some kind of reforma- 
tory for colored boys, but only Virginia, Kentucky, Okla- 
-homa, Tennessee, and South Carolina provide such an 
institution for colored girls. A movement is on foot in 
several other states to make provision to meet this need. 

Without such an institution many judges are unwilling to 


134 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


place colored girls who have committed minor offenses in 
jail. They merely release them to go back into their vicious 
environment, drift into worse habits and finally to become 
criminals. In the larger counties this is a serious situation. 
If probation officers are white, they have great difficulty in 
gaining the confidence of the Negro probationers. The bar- 
rier of color is between them and their charge. A few large 
counties have found the solution of this situation in the em- 
ployment of colored probation officers. The first colored pro- 
bation officer was employed only as late as 1915, but since that 
time several large counties have added such workers to their 
staff and found that the service which they render in correct- 
ing colored boys and girls is invaluable to the community. 
There is a great need for the extension of this work, and coun- 
ties whose revenues do not warrant the employment of a full- 
time officer are in need of part-time or voluntary probation 
service for colored delinquents. The Negroes themselves 
need to take a more enlightened and active interest in this 
great problem of theirs, and to manifest this interest by 
organizing juvenile delinquency councils which will codper- 
ate with the juvenile courts in handling the colored cases. 
With these adverse influences in living conditions, feeble- 
mindedness, unjust arrests, penal institutions and probation, 
the marvel is, not that one in each hundred Negroes is a 
convicted criminal, but that the rate is as low as it is. 


INJUSTICES IN THE COURTS 


The injustices to which the courts subject the Negro are 
largely the product of three things: prejudice, the economic 
condition of the Negro who is involved in court, and the 
unreliability of the testimony of many Negroes. Not only 


LAW AND ORDER 135 


is this true in criminal cases, but it also applies to civil suits 
in which a Negro is involved with a white man. Wherever a 
Negro is arrayed against a white man it is the old story of 
the weak against the strong. The report of the Carnegie 
Foundation on “Justice and the Poor” showed vividly that 
the poor man, whether he is white or black, is at a grave 
disadvantage when he attempts to secure justice in the 
courts. Studies of the relation of the immigrant to the court 
show that he suffers many of the same disadvantages as the 
Negro. Lawyers, not clients, secure justice, and the man 
who can employ competent counsel, and who has friends 
among the court officials and jurymen, has all the advantage 
on his side. 

Legal aid, when wisely administered, can do much to 
adjust this balance. There are now a few legal aid agencies 
in the South but, for the most part, the legal aid which 
Negroes receive is informal and unorganized. If the Negro 
who gets in trouble has a kind-hearted employer, or white 
friend who will secure a good lawyer for him, and will aid in 
getting witnesses to testify, he has an excellent chance to get 
justice, often to get more than justice. If, on the other 
hand, he is friendless, the small fee which he is able to pay 
often limits him to the services of a young, inexperienced, or 
an older shyster lawyer. The practices indulged in by some 
of these men who make a habit of soliciting Negro business 
around the jail is a disgrace to the legal profession and 
should subject them to disbarment. A well-organized legal 
aid society which would take only those cases which were 
thoroughly investigated beforehand, would divert much of 
the business from these less able lawyers and correct many 
of the injustices suffered by the Negro. 


136 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Again, there is much honest doubt in the minds of those 
who are experienced in handling Negro testimony as to 
when to believe and when not to believe this testimony in 
court. This is not due so much to any racial difference in 
attitude toward truth as it is to difference in mental attri- 
butes. The masses of Negroes are ignorant and highly 
excitable. Such people, in reporting events, often report 
their feelings rather than what they actually see and hear. 
They feel the events so keenly that they obtain a distorted 
notion of what is happening and actually believe that what 
they relate is true; but they can easily be tripped up and 
discredited before a jury by an experienced cross examiner. 
This has occurred so habitually that many jurymen flatly 
refuse to believe Negro testimony, and this condition will 
continue until training and self-control render the state- 
ments of the masses of Negroes more reliable, even when 
made under emotional stress. This condition makes pos- 
sible the rise of the loan-shark evil, exploitation by mer- 
chants and landlords, and peonage, against which the 
friendless Negro has little chance of redress in the courts 
unless he is extended legal aid. 


LYNCHING 


Lynching is the most spectacular and intensified injustice 
to the Negro. It is the one which agitates both the leaders 
and the masses most profoundly. At the same time it con- 
stitutes the greatest menace to white civilization. In the 
heat of a debate on international policies and in the midst 
of the controversies of a presidential campaign, Congress 
passed a resolution deploring the “‘British atrocities in Ire- 
land.” The Canadian Parliament immediately retaliated 


LAW AND ORDER 137 


with a resolution condemning mob violence in the United 
States. This was merely a piece of mutual legislative imper- 
tinence, but the response of the Canadians is a matter for 
careful thought. The potential influence of such ideals as 
the United States may sponsor is seriously challenged when 
Canadian Members of Parliament, Japanese publicists, and 
Tagore and his Indian followers inquire whether promis- 
cuous hanging and burning of fellow human beings are 
symbols of American civilization and democracy, when the 
prominent European journals feature the vilest actions of 
the mob, and when the people of Haiti and Mexico say that 
they see no reason why mob control of their countries gives 
us the excuse for intervention in their affairs when our own 
mobs are so violent and go unpunished. 

From these angles it is evident that lynching is a matter of 
more than nation-wide importance. Indeed it has assumed 
international aspects. Mob violence seems to be confined 
largely to America, but it is not confined to the Southern 
states. There the mob lynches; elsewhere it indulges in 
strike riots, race riots, or gang killings and bombings. 
These are diabolical blots on American civilization. A 
description of the barbarous details of lynchings would be 
too revolting to print, but the investigator of these cases 
could parallel the inhuman horrors of the Spanish inquisi- 
tion in the action of mobs in twentieth-century America. 

The most conservative records of mob actions list some 
four thousand victims of lynchers alone since 1885. In 
other words, during the past thirty-eight years Judge Lynch 
has executed on the average of two victims per week. This 
includes only persons who were accused or suspected of some 
crime. If a similar record could be compiled of the victims 


138 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


of race riots and strike mobs, the total would probably 
reach ten thousand. Judge Lynch has been active long 
enough to be an institution in some communities. He is a 
part of the hardened cake of custom and will not be easily 
dislodged. There are, however, methods by which his hold 
can be weakened. The facts indicate that they are the long 
slow methods of community education and local action 
rather than some sudden reform by the passage of an act of 
Congress. A deep-rooted custom has never been legislated 
out of existence in a hurry. 

One of the excuses of those who apologize for lynching is 
that it avenges a particular brutal and abhorrent crime 
which would be given too much publicity by court action. 
An examination of the facts does not bear out this state- 
ment. The majority of the lynchings are not for rape but 
for violence. The causes are as follows: 

Murder and assault, 43.6 per cent; rape or attempted 
rape, 23.0; theft, 7.4; other causes, 26.0. Thus while the 
mob may begin by lynching for one crime, once their blood 
lust is aroused they lynch for other crimes and sometimes 
for fancied offenses. As to publicity there is no comparison 
between the notice given an orderly court trial and that 
accorded by the flaming headlines which greet a lynching. 
In this respect the mob defeats its avowed purpose of 
protecting an innocent victim from the focus of public 
attention. 

CoMBATING THE Mos 

On the face of the record it is evident that mob rule is a 
temporary but vicious manifestation of a spirit of anarchy, 
and is, to an alarming degree, unpunished. In view of this 
condition it is regrettable that the present constitution and 


LAW AND ORDER 139 


machinery of the federal government seem unable to do 
anything effective to check this great evil. An attempt was 
made through the Dyer bill, which was introduced and 
shelved in the 1922 session of Congress and reintroduced in 
1924. The intent of this bill was to make participation in a 
mob an offense which may be punished by federal courts. 
The bill also provided that a fine of $10,000 be assessed 
against any county in which mob violence was committed 
and provided penalties against negligent public officials. 

Nothing was ever rationally settled by partisan or sec- 
tional controversy, and when the debate becomes both 
partisan and sectional, the result is disastrously unsettling. 
In handling the Dyer anti-lynching bill, Congress developed 
little but partisan and sectional arguments. The net result 
was that the national attitude toward this question of fun- 
damental importance has been decidedly muddled. Northern 
Congressmen tore their hair over the lynching record of the 
Southern states, — and it is black enough. But Southern 
Congressmen merely countered with citations of the race 
and strike riots of Northern cities. In addition there were 
honest doubts on both sides as to whether or not it is consti- 
tutional to take this particular form of crime, now in the 
hands of the state courts, and place it in the jurisdiction of 
the federal courts. 

Aside from the constitutionality of federal interference 
in lynching, the fundamental objection to this course, which 
was hardly touched on in Congress, is that the federal courts 
would, in all probability, be less effective than state courts, 
and the act of giving the federal courts and officials responsi- 
bility would lessen the very essential sense of responsibility 
now developing among state and county officials. Many 


140 ‘THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


local sheriffs and police officers would shrug their shoulders 
and say: ‘‘Now that Uncle Sam has taken hold, that 
lets me out. The United States marshal is welcome to 
the job.” 

To those who have watched the federal courts in their 
efforts to enforce the prohibition law, it is evident that much 
is to be said in favor of leaving the power and the responsi- 
bility in the hands of local officials. In some of the states 
which had prohibition laws before the passage of the federal 
act, the flagrant violations of the national law have led to 
the belief that the previous state enforcement was more 
effective than the present federal effort. Recent contact 
with peonage cases, in which federal officials have been 
unable to act effectively, has forced the belief that, in this 
field also, there is very little to choose between federal and 
state action. 

In the last analysis, whether the trial be in the federal 
court or in a state court, the conviction of mob members will 
depend upon whether or not local people will come forward 
and give their testimony freely and frankly, whether local 
officers will do their sworn duty in gathering this testimony, 
and whether local jurors will set aside their prejudices and 
personal feelings to the extent of returning a verdict in 
accordance with the evidence submitted. In other words, 
whether conviction is sought for violators of a prohibition 
act, peonage act, or anti-lynching act, the federal court will 
hardly be more efficient than the state court in areas where 
the local sentiment has not reached the point of repudiating 
the crime. 

The one good result of the introduction of the Dyer bill 
has been that it stimulated discussion and wide publicity. 


LAW AND ORDER 141 


It was opposed on the plea that the states should handle 
lynching, and that has contributed to the growth of the 
feeling that state and local officials are placed under a 
moral obligation to stamp out the evil. 

But there is another side of the picture. Successes in 
some local efforts to curb Judge Lynch have been as encour- 
aging as the failure of the federal government has been 
disheartening. Lynching is on the decline, largely because of 
these local efforts. From 255 victims in 1892, the number has 
steadily decreased to 57 in 1922, 28 in 1923, and 16 in 1924. 
Many states, including those of the so-called ‘‘ Wild West,” 
have reduced the evil to a vanishing point. In Georgia, 
where the problem is often said to be the most difficult, 
notable progress has been made. The method of conducting 
the fight under difficult conditions is worthy of detailed 
attention. 

In 1919 and 1920, when crime was rife in the United 
States, Governor Hugh M. Dorsey was struggling against 
the current in Georgia. He had many calls for aid from 
local communities and much experience in dealing with 
local officials. Upon leaving the governor’s chair he sum- 
marized some of his experiences in an appeal to the con- 
science of the law-abiding element in the state, calling upon 
them to protect Georgia from the acts of organized mob 
minorities. He cited 135 cases of injustice to the Negro and 
stated that there had been 57 lynchings, 14 per year, dur- 
ing his administration. The publication of this appeal in 
pamphlet form was the opening gun in a long campaign 
against the lawless element. 

Since then three years have elapsed, enough time to judge 
the effects of this course. Before the publication of this 


142. THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


pamphlet over 400 cases of lynching had occurred in the 
state with only one indictment of mob members. In 1922, 
instead of 14 lynchings, there were g, in 1923 only 4, and in 
1924 only 2. In four cases indictments have been returned 
and twenty-two people were indicted. Four have been sent 
to the penitentiary. In two cases where mobs were unsuc- 
cessful their members were sued for damages and eight 
members of unsuccessful mobs were indicted for assault. 
In every case there has been a storm of indignant protest 
from the better element of the community. 

“That looks like real progress,” is the comment of the 
Christian Index, the official organ of Georgia’s Baptists. 
“One thing is true: The people of Georgia are opposed to 
lynching. We do not believe that this statement has been 
made frequently enough. There has not been as much 
encouragement to stand against mob rule as there should 
have been.” . 

Before Governor Dorsey’s exposé the large state papers 
published very little concerning mobs either in the news or 
the editorial sections. Since that time, although there has 
been less actual violence, the volume of comment and con- 
demnation has been large. Clippings from the Atlanta 
papers alone fill a sizable scrap book. This publicity has 
been one of the strong weapons against the mob, for mob 
members shrink from it. Changes in the public mind are 
slow and their reflection in the acts of officials and courts 
are still slower, but it is generally felt in Georgia that there 
is a distinct trend toward the disfavor of Judge Lynch, and 
the recital of the outcome of the lynching prosecutions of 
1922 indicates beyond doubt that this change is gradually 
molding the acts of local courts and communities. 


LAW AND ORDER 143 


Besides the press, another powerful agency is arrayed 
against lynching as never before. This is the sentiment of 
the churches. The Southern Baptist Convention has con- 
demned mob violence strongly and this condemnation has 
found its way to congregations through the pulpit. Another 
powerful religious organization recently arrayed against 
lynching is the Southern Methodist Woman’s Missionary 
Council. Their statement of their position is especially 
strong: 


Whereas the defeat of the Dyer anti-lynching bill, which pro- 
vided for the federal control of lynching, has thrown the whole 
responsibility back upon each state for removing this hideous 
crime, therefore: 

We do now demand of the authorities of the several states 
that they make good their claim (that they can control lynch- 
ing), proving their competency to abolish violence and lynching. 

That we formulate plans in behalf of adequate state laws and 
law enforcement. | 


Besides these general religious bodies, a number of local 
presbyteries, synods, conventions, and conferences in the © 
South have spoken against the evil and urged their members 
to use their influence to abate it. The general federation of 
churches in the United States, the Federal Council, has com- 
mitted itself to a five-year campaign against the evil. When 
these great spiritual currents, which are guided by the 
churches and by the women, turn against lynching, there 
can be no doubt as to the final outcome of the struggle to 
eliminate it. 

Throughout the South, county committees on race rela- 
tions and, in some states, county leagues for the enforce- 
ment of law have been organized. They have been most 


144 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


effective in strengthening the constituted authorities in 
their stand against the mob. A study of the activities of 
these organizations indicates that more vigorous local action 
may be expected along two lines. One type consists in 
strengthening the machinery of law enforcement; that is, 
imposing penalties on negligent sheriffs, creating state 
police forces, and providing for the rotation of judges and 
prosecutors so that some of the effects of local prejudice are 
nullified. The other type consists of the application of a 
more militant spirit to the enforcement of law in the courts ; 
that is, conscientious jury service, and service as reviser of 
the jury list, demand for stringent investigation of lynch- 
ings, and law-and-order organizations which pledge them- 
selves to lend active aid to the officers of the law. 

Much can be expected from such action. This has been 
proved in some states. In the far West, where lynching 
first became prevalent, this form of violent and illegal 
punishment has almost disappeared. It has been supplanted 
by a strong system of courts and a greater respect for the 
lawful processes. In the South, where lynching took hold 
when the court machinery was weakened by the ravages of 
the Civil War, the evil has thrived behind a smoke screen of 
color prejudice. Yet in some of the Southern states it has 
been successfully attacked. 

South Carolina, in 1895, adopted a constitutional provi- 
sion that the governor could remove any sheriff who per- 
mitted a lynching in his county. Since that time lynchings 
in South Carolina have steadily decreased almost to the van- 
ishing point. By a similar provision, adopted in 1gor, Ala- 
bama has reduced her number from 12 to 5 per year, and the 
addition of a state police has further decreased the evil. Since 


LAW AND ORDER 145 


the passage of the state police law in Tennessee, almost four 
years ago, there have been but two lynchings. Kentucky, 
Florida, and West Virginia also give their governors power 
to remove their sheriffs, and movements are on foot to 
secure the same provision in other states. 

The most effective anti-lynching provision is the plan of 
making the sheriff answerable to a superior authority. A 
determined sheriff can stop almost any mob. He has the 
whole manhood of the county at his disposal. One sheriff is 
known to have stopped a mob by deputizing its leaders to 
protect the prisoner and telling them that they would be 
held personally responsible for his safety. Another informed 
the mob that the jail doors were open to them, but that the 
prisoner was armed with a riot shot gun and would use it if 
they entered the front door. They did not enter. A power- 
ful water hose is another excellent means of dispersing a 
crowd, more effective and less fatal than rifle fire. In short, 
there are a dozen ways open to a resourceful, determined 
sheriff. For this reason most preventive laws are aimed at 
strengthening the hands of the sheriff and providing penal- 
ties for his negligence. This remedy is much to be desired 
because it is designed to stop mobs before they accomplish 
their purpose rather than to punish them after they have 
committed murder. 

Local action also takes the form of more vigorous investi- 
gation of lynchings with the view of punishing mob members. 
Much of the success along this line in recent years has been 
due to the activity of prominent local leaders who assist 
prosecuting attorneys in gathering their facts, and who help 
to create such a sentiment against lynching that grand 
juries will indict and petit juries will convict mob members. 


146 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Another form of local action consists in protecting the 
prisoner. In one Georgia county eight hundred men re- 
cently organized for this purpose. They were divided in 
squads and one of these squads was actually on duty at the 
jail continually. The publication of this fact in the local 
papers made it impossible for a mob to form. In another 
county the local interracial committee quieted the mob 
spirit by offering a large reward for the capture and legal 
conviction of a criminal. Such local activity is now so wide- 
spread that the number of frustrated mobs is greater than 
the number which are successful. 

Thus more efficient state and local action has not only 
almost abolished lynching in some of the Southern states, 
but in others it has localized the evil. In Georgia, for 
instance, an examination of the records for the past 22 years 
reveals that three-fourths of the lynchings have been con- 
centrated in 36 counties and 67 counties have never resorted 
to this practice. The proportions run about the same 
throughout the South. These lynching counties are without 
exception in rural areas where police protection is inade- 
quate and where the courts are weakest. 

Another ten years of vigorous propaganda and prosecu- 
tion will see the mob spirit thoroughly controlled in the 
United States. This much-to-be-desired goal cannot be 
reached, however, without the expenditure of a great deal 
of effort and energy by the average citizen in the communi- 
ties where the evil is now localized. It will require daring 
and skill, and there is enough adventure in matching wits 
with a mob or facing it boldly to appeal to the American 
spirit. It is a citizen’s fight, and the need for waging war 
against this enemy which attacks our civilization from 


LAW AND ORDER 147 


within is as great as was that for curbing the raids of the red 
savage against the early pioneer settlements, for mob vio- 
lence flouts the law and, if unchecked, it weakens all laws. 
It is dynamite at the foundations of government. If the 
fight is not won, there can be no safety under legal institu- 
tions and democracy itself is in danger. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Annual Report of the Georgia Committee on Race Relations, 1922. 

Atlanta University Publications 8 and 19, 1904 and 1o15s. 

Commission on Interracial Codperation. ‘Black Spots on the Map.” 

Cut Ler, J. E. Lynch Law in the United States. 

DorsEy, HucH M. A Statement as to the Negro in Georgia. 

MECKLIN, J. M. Democracy and Race Friction, Chapter IX. 

Report of the Georgia Commission and the Survey of Mental Hygiene 
made by National Committee for Mental Hygiene. 

» STEPHENSON, G. T. Race Distinction in American Law. 

The Negro in Chicago. Chapters I and VII. 

WasHINGTON, B. T. The Story of the Negro, Vol. II, Chapter IV. 

Witcox, W. F. Studies in the American Race Problems, pp. 443-476. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. Spend some time in a court in which Negroes are tried 
and make observations on the manner of dispensing justice 
and the attitude of arresting officers and court officials. 


2. From your knowledge of the African background of the 
Negro discuss the suddenness of his change from tribal customs 
to United States law: (a) in regard to property; (0) in regard 
to family morality; (c) in regard to drunkenness. 


8. From Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915, 
study the crimes for which Negroes are convicted and draw 
conclusions. Supplement this with a study of a local com- 
munity. 


148 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


4. Trace the effect of the four outstanding causes of Negro 
criminality as they are evidenced in the type of crime for which 
Negroes are convicted. 


5. From your knowledge of the actions of a mob, or from 
actual observation in a community, discuss the effects of a 
lynching on publicity given the crime, on respect for law in the 
community, on the innocent Negro population. When two men 
have been members of a mob and later one is on trial and the 
other is on the jury, what will happen? How does this affect 
the court machinery ? 


6. Study the distribution of lynching and endeavor to ex- 
plain it: (a) on the basis of presence or absence of Negro popula- 
tion; (0) on the spirit of law observance; (c) on the strength of 
the police powers. 


7. What are the essential differences and similarities between 
lynchings, strike mobs, and race riots? 


8. Study the case records of a charity organization and 
determine how legal-aid work would lighten the charity burden. 


9. Summarize the anti-lynching activities in the United 
States. 


10. Report on the care of the feeble-minded Negroes. (See 
Census of Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915, 
also reports National Committee for Mental Hygiene.) What 
effect would better care of this problem have on crime? 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 


The adjustment of the Negro to federal, state, county, 
and city governments furnishes one of the most difficult 
tasks of American politics. If democracy is anything more 
than an empty formula, it means the equalization of op- 
portunity to the fullest extent consistent with the harmo- 
nious development of the whole community. It means 
that every individual, regardless of his color or creed, should 
have the chance to develop his capacities in any respect in 
which his individual development does not infringe upon 
the opportunities of the whole group. It means that the 
government shall furnish institutions which will contribute 
to this development of the citizenry and that, in so far as 
it is consistent with the welfare of these institutions, the 
citizens shall have a voice in determining institutional 
policies and administering them. 


NEGRO CITIZENS 


On the other hand the duties of citizenship in a democracy 
imply much more than mere residence. They demand sup- 
port of the community institutions by contributions of 
money and service and, in extreme necessity, by bearing 
arms in their defense. Obviously every population is 
composed of individuals who vary greatly in the ability 

149 


130 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


to perform these duties of citizenship. At the upper end 
of the scale democracy places the energetic and able leaders 
who are chosen by the people as experts in legislative, 
administrative, and judicial capacities. At the lower end 
are various classes, such as the criminal, the insane, the 
feeble-minded, and the unnaturalized foreign born, who 
are almost completely excluded from any of the privileges 
of citizenship. Between these extremes the masses of 
average men participate in varying degrees in the adminis- 
tration of the communal affairs. As democracy evolves 
in the direction of efficiency, more and more restrictions 
are placed around office holding in order to insure the fitness 
of the candidate for the place. Various qualifications are 
set up for voting, the one most universal being the necessity 
of paying at least a poll tax toward the support of the 
government. Other prerequisites which have been imposed 
In various states are literacy, property ownership, and 
time of residence in the community. 

Notwithstanding all idealistic theories that every man is 
born free and equal, the enlightened democracy does not 
treat every man equally with regard to the suffrage, eligi- 
bility for office, or even with regard to the right to move 
freely in the community. If it did so, it would lay itself 
wide open to the attrition of inefficiency, ignorance, vice, 
and crime. The one principle which must be observed, 
however, in determining these restrictions is that of testing 
the capacity of the individual. Whole classes or groups 
cannot be restricted without the stultification of democratic 
principles. 

If, therefore, all Negroes were feeble-minded, or all were 
criminal, or all were unable to pay any tax, there would be 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT st 


no problem concerning their relation to American institu- 
tions; they would be automatically excluded. If, on the 
other hand, they were all property holders, all of average 
intelligence, all incorruptible, the problem would be equally 
as simple; they could exercise the full duties, therefore 
share all the privileges of democracy. 

But the situation is not simple in any respect. In the 
very areas where the Negro is in the majority, his group is 
less intelligent, less familiar with American institutions, 
farther down in the economic scale, and most likely to 
constitute the corrupt mass-voting element. In the areas 
where the Negro is distinctly in the minority, he is more 
intelligent, has had more chance to observe the workings 
of the white man’s institutions, is higher in the economic 
scale, and more fitted in every way to perform the duties 
of citizenship. Consequently the extent to which Negroes 
are given a voice in determining policies and administering 
community affairs varies greatly in different localities. In 
some states the poll tax is the only requirement which they 
have to meet in order to vote, and as a result we find that 
full suffrage is granted in all the Northern and several 
Southern states. In such towns as Boley, Oklahoma, 
Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and a number of others where 
the population is wholly Negro, they are in complete control 
of affairs, and in every state, Northern and Southern, they 
vote on the same terms as other property holders in bond 
issues and school elections. 

In the light of these differing governmental attitudes of 
communities toward the Negro, it is interesting to examine 
the facts available concerning the ability of the Negro to 
perform the duties of citizenship and the effect of this 


152 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


performance upon the government, for if democracy is to 
assume a rational attitude toward this large group of 
citizens it will be arrived at by a calm consideration of the 
facts rather than zealous advocacy of idealistic formule, 
or stubborn adherence to partisanship or tradition. 


NEGRO TAXPAYERS 


As property holders a substantial and growing number of 
colored people contribute their tax money to the support 
of their federal, state, county, and city governments. The 
218,000 farm owners alone pay taxes on over $200,000,000 
worth of land. In addition the growing army (472,000 in 
1920) of owners of humble homes and the proprietors of 
small businesses pay considerable amounts into the public 
treasuries. 

It is difficult to determine the exact amount of these tax 
payments for several reasons, the principal one being that 
only three states, — Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, 
— separate the property returned by colored tax payers. In 
Georgia the real and personal property returned by Negroes 
in 1921 was $59,000,000 out of a total of $1,200,000,000 ; 
that is, about a twentieth of the total. The $69,354,000 
worth of real and personal property returned in Virginia 
is 4.4 per cent, or about a twentieth of the total. In North 
Carolina they return $106,866,000 of the state’s $2,213,755,- 
000, or 4.7 per cent of the total. Estimating from the actual 
returns in these three states, and the farms and homes owned 
in other states, it is safe to say that Negroes return about 
8 per cent of the taxable property in Mississippi, 7 per cent 
in South Carolina, 6 per cent in Arkansas, 5 per cent in 
Alabama and Louisiana, 3 per cent in Florida, 2 per cent 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 153 


in Tennessee, 2 per cent in Texas, and 1 per cent in Ken- 
tucky. A safe estimate of the amount of property which 
they returned for taxes in the whole country is $650,000- 
ooo. Inasmuch as property is never assessed at its full 
value, this is far below the market value of the property 
owned by colored people. 

This proportion varies greatly within the different 
states. In certain counties and cities where the Negroes 
are in the majority, the proportion of taxable property 
which they return is higher. In Burke County, Georgia, 
for instance, they return about an eighth of the total, while 
in some of the mountain counties of that state they return 
none. In the city of Hampton, Virginia, they return 12 per 
cent of the property, while in Radford they return only 
about 2 per cent. 


PROPERTY OF NEGROES (CENSUS OF 1920) 


PERCENTAGE 
US VALUE OF VALUE OF own eda 
STATE PROPERTY FARMS FARMS HOMES | “RenreD 
Si ees an! rome 2 eter a RG da 
Ser eves at Necunes NEGROES 
Alabama 21.5 $29,024,680 | $86,826,227 | 35,402 | 164,609 
Arkansas 24.2 45,592,538 | 135,677,516 | 27,158 | 83,154 
Florida . 6.2 9,027,053 | 7,522,015 | 22,533 | 57,203 
Georgia . 28.0 45,486,236 | 275,510,473 | 40,203 | 225,250 
Kentucky . 2.9 16,391,297 | 18,996,335 | 19,372 | 41,502 
Louisiana 22.9 25,472,023 | 81,347,335 | 28,906 | 129,088 
Mississippi 51.1 56,751,385 | 343,737:036 | 36,449 | 179,954 
North Carolina 21.4 58,650,868 | 169,844,814 | 45,909 | 105,197 
South Carolina 35.7 59,839,583 | 228,363,624 | 36,519 | 140,235 
Tennessee . 8.8 25,277,345 | 64,349,200 | 28,070 | 79,907 
Texas 6.1 68,170,518 | 155,175,385 | 49,550 | 116,949 
Virginia 9.8 57,085,473 | 41,573,389 | 61,307 | 84,071 


154 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


But the property which is on the tax books in the name of 
colored owners is by no means a complete gauge of the tax 
borne by colored people. For every dollar’s worth of land 
owned there is approximately three dollars’ worth rented 
by colored farmers; for every home owned there are three 
rented, and it is a well-established economic fact that on 
city rental property, although the landlord actually hands 
over the tax money to the collector, his ability to pay rests 
on the payment of the rent by the tenant. Likewise the 
taxes on corporate property and the license taxes are paid 
by the patrons of the businesses, and the colored people bear 
their proportionate part. A fair method of arriving at the 
proportion of the total tax borne by colored people, there- 
fore, would be to add to the value of real property 
owned, the value of homes rented, and the personal prop- 
erty, and to find what proportion this sum is of the total 
property. 

Such large contributions from colored taxpayers to the 
support of their governments certainly merit consideration 
when funds are appropriated for public institutions. Justice 
and honesty should demand that the Negro get from the 
government services at least in proportion to the amount of 
tax which he pays directly and indirectly. The democratic 
theory of public expenditure demands more than common 
justice. It demands that the money raised from public tax- 
ation be spent where it is most needed, regardless of the sums 
which the needy group have paidin. If the policy of expend- 
ing money for education in proportion to the amount paid in 
were adopted, then the rich districts and wards would have 
magnificent palaces for public schools and the poorer dis- 
tricts and wards would have schools little better than those 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 155 


provided for the Negroes now. In order to equalize the 
opportunities in rich and poor counties almost every state 
has a state school fund which is distributed to these counties 
not on the basis of what they pay into the state treasury, 
but on the basis of their school population or school 
attendance. This would seem to be a fair basis for the coun- 
ties in turn to use in equalizing the opportunities in their 
poorer and richer school districts. 

Some communities are, however, so far behind the reali- 
zation of this democratic ideal that it is necessary to hold 
up before them the amount of money which the Negroes 
actually contribute in order to emphasize the fact that 
common justice demands the more liberal support of colored — 
institutions. 

Many communities in the South have never expended a 
cent of public money for a colored public school building, 
but have relied on the use of a church or a school building 
erected by private agencies. In some of these communities 
bonds have been issued recently to build expensive schools 
for whites. This means that colored property holders are 
taxed to build school buildings for white people — a con- 
dition which is not only undemocratic and unjust, but 
also unworthy of the essential love of fair play of the 
American. 

When, however, other institutions than the common 
schools are considered, it is evident that in the majority 
of Southern states and local communities there are appro- 
priations from which the Negro receives less than justice. 
For institutions of higher education, that is, the universities, 
normal schools, junior colleges, agricultural and mechanical 
schools, and special institutions in Georgia, the Negroes 


156 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


receive only a thirty-fifth of the appropriation, though they 
pay a twentieth of the taxes directly and bear a much 
larger part of the tax burden. 

The distribution of funds for the benefit of the two races 
in reform schools, asylums, institutions for feeble-minded, 
schools for blind and deaf, tuberculosis sanitaria, and other 
state institutions is more difficult to determine because, in 
many instances, the Negroes are cared for in special wards 
of one general state institution, and the one budget includes 
both races. We may note, however, that only Virginia, 
Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and South Carolina have 
provision for the institutional correction of Negro delin- 
quent girls. In no state is there an institution for the Negro 
feeble-minded. 

When the local communities are considered there are still 
other inequalities in the distribution of public funds. Ap- 
propriations for parks, almshouses, hospitals, libraries, and 
other civic improvements should be very carefully scru- 
tinized to see that the Negro has his share of the benefits, 
at least in proportion to his contribution to the public 
treasury, if not in proportion to his great need for such 
institutions. 

NEGRO PATRIOTS 

In the defense of his country the Negro also measures up 
to the standard required of a citizen. Those who doubt the 
loyalty of the Negro to his country or his willingness to lay 
his life on her altar need only to trace his record in battle. 
Comparatively few remember that it was Crispus Attucks, 
a former slave, who was the first to fall in the Revolutionary 
War; or that Peter Salem, one of a company of Negroes in 
the battle of Bunker Hill, fired the shot which killed the 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 157 


British leader, Major Pitcairn, and turned the tide of that 
battle; or that the song, ‘‘The Old Flag Never Touched 
the Ground, Boys,” originated from the saying of standard 
bearer Carney, who, at Fort Wagner, though severely 
wounded and nearly exhausted from loss of blood, held the 
flag of his regiment on the parapet until the regiment was 
relieved; or that a Negro officer of the 24th infantry was 
the first to enter the Spanish Block House in the battle 
of El Caney and to haul down the Spanish flag; or 
that two Negro soldiers of the 369th infantry (15th New 
York National Guard) were the first members of the 
American Expeditionary Forces to receive the French croix 
de guerre. 

It is significant that, in spite of the successive war ex- 
periences demonstrating the fitness and devotion of Negro 
soldiers, each new war finds leaders debating the advis- 
ability of the use of Negro troops. Asa rule their doubts 
have been frankly expressed, not on the ground of fear of 
lack of efficiency in colored troops, but on the ground that 
inasmuch as the Negro had not been given a full share of the 
privileges of the country — had not always been justly 
dealt with — he might not be as devoted and loyal as other 
Americans. Another fear frankly expressed has been that 
if the Negroes should be called upon to fight for the country 
they might demand as recompense more privileges than the 
country was willing to grant. In other words, when Amer- 
icans have faced great crises they have felt as a house 
divided; they have feared that resentment on the part of 
one great group of the population would make them unwill- 
ing to defend the country. These doubts as to the use of 
Negro troops appeared early in the Revolutionary War, 


158 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


when in 1775 General Washington and some of his brigadier 
generals unanimously rejected the idea of enlisting Ne- 
groes. The last day of the same year, however, General 
Washington reversed this policy and issued orders author- 
izing the enlistment of free Negroes. Although colored 
body servants were with Southern troops from the beginning 
of the Civil War, the federal government, unwilling at 
first to face the question of the emancipation of slaves, 
declined to use Negro troops, and this struggle had been 
in progress two years before Negroes were enlisted. Similar 
doubts were expressed upon the entry of the United States 
into the World War, but were very early overruled in favor 
of the fullest use of colored soldiers. 

The Negroes’ Revolutionary War record begins with the 
fall of Crispus Attucks on Boston Common and runs through 
the exploits of the colored company at Bunker Hill, of the 
colored regiment in the Battle of Rhode Island, and of the 
Black Legion from Haiti, which covered the retreat of the 
Americans and French in the battle of Savannah. It is a 
chronicle of which Americans, black and white, may be 
justly proud. 

In the War of 1812 the two signal contributions of Negroes 
were service in the battle of Lake Erie, for which they were 
praised by Admiral Perry, and at the battle of New 
Orleans, on whose eve General Andrew Jackson spoke to 
them in these stirring words: 


To the men of color — Soldiers! from the shores of Mobile 
I collected you to arms; I invited you to share in the perils and 
to divide the glory of your white countrymen. I expected much 
from you, for I was not uninformed of those qualities which 
must render you so formidable to an invading foe. I knew you 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 159 


could endure hunger and thirst and all the hardships of war. I 
knew that you loved the land of your nativity and that, like 
ourselves, you had to defend all that is most dear to man. I 
have found in you, united to these qualities, that noble enthu- 
siasm which impels great deeds. 


Throughout the bitter hardships of the closing months of 
the Civil War, Negro troops were used. General Butler 
organized the first regiments of Louisiana Negroes late in 
1862, and a Kansas regiment was organized early in 1863. 
In less than six months after the first regiment had been 
mustered in they had participated in six important actions 
and had acquitted themselves well. 

From the time of the Civil War onward, several Negro 
units were included in the regular army. The oth and roth 
cavalry and the 24th and 25th infantry regiments have 
a most honorable place in the annals of the regulars, and 
were assigned important duties in the Cuban campaign 
and in the Mexican punitive expedition. 

The most remarkable work done by colored troops, how- 
ever, was during the World War, when 342,000 were mo- 
bilized for a great variety of services. At home the active 
contributions of colored citizens to increased agricultural 
and industrial production, to Red Cross work, food conser- 
vation, and government loan campaigns were a source of 
pride and a gratifying surprise to those who had not in- 
formed themselves on the Negro’s patriotism. War records 
for driving piles and driving rivets fell before the vigor with 
which Negro workers approached their task. It wasa Negro 
bank of Portsmouth, Virginia, which sold $100,000 worth of 
Liberty Bonds, though its quota was only $5700, thereby 
winning first place from all banks in the United States. It 


160 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


has been estimated that the average contribution from 
Negro men, women, and children to war work funds 
was $25. 

The selective service boards certified 31.7 per cent of 
Negro and 26.8 per cent of white draftees for full military 
service. This larger proportion of Negroes indicates a 
commendable refusal of many colored draftees to claim 
exemption. 

No one who entered or left through one of the great base 
ports in France can forget the bustling activity and the 
tuneful singing of the Negro stevedores and labor battalions 
which, under the direction of American engineers, revolu- 
tionized the operation of these ports and opened the eyes 
of the world to the possibilities of efficiency in unloading 
ships. 

Negro combat troops also were employed. Undoubtedly 
mistakes of the kind which are unavoidable with green 
troops were made, but the War Department records show 
that on the whole these troops, like the white American 
regiments, acquitted themselves on the field of glory not 
only with merit, but also with distinction. 

The colored combat units were designated as the 93d 
provisional division (infantry only) and the g2d division 
(complete). The four infantry regiments (369th, 37oth, 
371st, and 372d) of the 93d were among the first to 
embark and were brigaded with the French. The 369th 
was brigaded with French Moroccan troops and, in the 
Champagne drive, the whole regiment behaved with such 
gallantry and courage that 171 of their number were given 
the croix de guerre and the colonel was awarded the 
Legion of Honor. This regiment was the first allied unit 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 161 


to reach the Rhine (in front of Laon), and it is said that 
they ‘‘never lost a foot of ground nor a man captured.” 
At one time when the French were hard pressed they held 
a sector for three months without relief. In the farewell 
order to the 371st and 372d, General Coybet of the 157th 
French Division d’infantrie said, ‘‘Never will the 157th 
Division forget the indomitable dash, the heroic rush of the 
American regiments up the observatory ridge and into the 
Plains of Monthois. Through their steady devotion, the 
‘Red Hand’ Division for nine whole days of severe struggle, 
was constantly leading the way for the victorious advance 
of the Fourth Army.” 

The 92d Division, composed of the 365th, 366th, 367th, 
and 368th infantries, with trains and machine gun battal- 
ions, was first in the St. Die sector, then at Marbache, 
before Metz, where they engaged in some heavy action. 
The casualties of this division were 103 officers and 1543 
men. One whole battalion of the 367th was cited for 
bravery and awarded the croix de guerre, and General 
Pershing said to them in their farewell review: ‘You 
stood second to none in the record you have made since 
your arrival in France.” 

No one who reads this record need fear that the Negro is 
lacking in patriotism or in ability to bear arms for the 
nation. In all this long military service there has never 
been a Negro spy or traitor and few have been captured. 
After each war they have returned to the peaceful pursuits 
and violence has been put aside. Thus, though denied the 
fullest participation in the privileges and liberties of Amer- 
ica, they have given freely when they were called upon to 
defend these privileges and liberties. 


162 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


NEGRO VOTERS 


These contributions of the Negro to the support and the 
defense of the government bring about a paradox in democ- 
racy, for there are numbers of communities in which the 
colored man’s ability to support and to defend the gov- 
ernment is fully recognized, but in which his privilege of 
voting to determine policies and to choose officers is flatly 
denied. 

It is significant that this denial is strictest in the areas 
where the Negro forms a very large proportion of the popu- 
lation. In these communities, the decision as to the Negro’s 
participation in government rests finally upon the actual 
effects which this participation would have upon the 
public institutions and public life. The condition is one 
which calls for supreme wisdom, supreme forbearance, and 
a supreme determination to preserve the institutions and 
ideals of democracy against the corruption and inefficiency 
of mass ignorance on the one hand, and against dema- 
goguery, prejudice, and exploitation on the other. 

Back of this situation is the bitter history of reconstruc- 
tion days when the federal government insisted upon the 
immediate, idealistic application of the principles of uni- 
versal suffrage to the illiterate and inexperienced freedmen, 
and when as a result the South saw exploitation and cor- 
ruption placed in power, public office debauched, public 
appropriations lavished, and public faith in government 
destroyed. 

Some escape from such an intolerable situation was 
imperative. Because the federal constitution forbade dis- 
crimination on account of race or color, the reaction in 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 163 


the South was in the direction of the disfranchisement of 
ignorance and poverty, which, at first, was a virtual dis- 
franchisement of the Negro. 

The three classes of restriction which the disfranchisement 
movement of the 1880’s and 18g90’s placed upon the suffrage 
were: Requirement that the voter own a stipulated amount 
of property, demonstrate ability to read and write, or to 
interpret the constitution of the United States. Since such 
a large proportion of the Negro population was, at that 
time, illiterate and since such a large proportion owned no 
property, they were automatically disfranchised. The door 
was not, however, closed to them for all times, for, under 
the law, when they become property owners and when they 
_ become trained, they are privileged to apply for registration 
as qualified voters. It would prove interesting if students 
of politics could give an accurate picture of the extent to 
which Negroes have succeeded in registering and in voting 
under these stringent rules. Where there are two parties, 
as in Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and parts of Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, a considerable number of colored 
registrants vote in all elections. In other states consider- 
able numbers vote on bond issues and local matters but do 
not take the trouble to vote in general elections because the 
one-party system is such that the democratic nominee is 
virtually conceded the election, and very few votes, white 
or black, are cast except in the primary. In the absence 
of any recent investigations of this subject the writer may 
state that it is his personal observation that some 3500 
Negroes are registered in Atlanta, 2000 in Savannah, 
tooo in Jacksonville, and proportionate numbers in every 
city or town. 


164 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


So far there can be no quarrel with the Southern franchise 
laws as written. If states decide to limit the suffrage to 
the property holding and intelligent citizens, they are well 
within their rights and, according to many students of 
political science, are acting the part of wisdom, for igno- 
rance and irresponsibility are dangerous forces to be loosed 
in a democracy. 

But the administration of these laws was placed in the 
hands of local registration boards with wide discretionary 
powers. Where these boards are fair, applying the law to 
white and colored illiteracy and irresponsibility alike, they 
serve as a protection of the suffrage. In areas where the 
Negroes are in the majority, however, or where they form a 
very large minority, these boards resort to many subter- 
fuges to let in white registrants and rule out colored regis- 
trants. In these communities the basis upon which these 
local boards proceed is that of experience. The bitternesses 
of reconstruction, the realities of the degradation of politics 
by the sudden enfranchisement of the masses of black 
illiterates are too close at hand for them to desire a second 
experiment in extending the suffrage too rapidly to the 
masses of colored citizens. Such communities need, how- 
ever, to weigh carefully the ultimate results of this policy. 
To quote from Dr. Edgar Gardner Murphy’s Present South: 

Before all questions which touch the political status of any 
race or class of men there arises the primary question as to the 
effect upon our country and its constitution, upon its civic 
customs and its habits of thought, of the creation of a serf 
class, a fixed non-voting population. 


Another restriction which disfranchises fully as many 
white people as Negroes is one which is wisely calculated 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 165 


to combat corruption. During the halcyon days of univer- 
sal suffrage it was common for political henchmen the day 
before the election to corral large groups of men, march 
them to the registration booths, give them money to pay 
their poll tax, and vote them en bloc. In order to prevent 
this, most states require that the poll tax be paid from three 
to six months in advance of the election. No boss will trust 
a corrupt voter for such a long period and hence none will 
advance his poll tax. This requirement restricts the suffrage 
to the conscientious, far-sighted citizens who form the 
regular habit of paying the poll tax and registering promptly. 
With this provision also, there can be no quarrel, as it is 
usually fairly administered. It is probable that the failure. 
to comply with this provision has more to do with the 
failure of colored people to vote than any other because the 
masses of the race do not seem to be nearly so interested in 
the suffrage as many of their leaders seem to desire. 

The third method of excluding the Negro from govern- 
mental affairs is the one-party system which has worked 
out as much to the disadvantage of the white South as that 
of the Negro. When the literacy and property tests dis- 
franchised the Negro, only the white democrats were left 
voting and they secured control of the party machinery and 
determined that the voting in democratic primaries should 
be restricted to white voters. Legally this is strictly proper, 
for it is within the rights of a political party to restrict its 
membership. In practice, however, this has saddled a one- 
party system on the Southern South which vitiates political 
life. Where there is just one party, issues are purely local 
and in most cases they are entirely obscured by personali- 
ties. Demagoguery is enthroned and machine government 


166 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


thrives. Thus in closing the front door to ignorance and 
unreliability, the Southern democratic party has encouraged 
mediocracy and opened the back door to boss rule and 
election on petty personalities. 

There is much discontent abroad in the South concerning 
this one-party system. Its evils are keeping good men 
from seeking office and even preventing them from voting; 
and there are no counteracting vital public issues to attract 
them to the political arena. Many people feel that the 
solution of the situation is the development of two or more 
parties in the South, and there is no doubt that if the 
bugaboo of Negro domination were dispelled, the solid 
South would split, — at least on local issues. It is, therefore, 
apparent that in excluding the Negro the South is, in a way, 
politically dominated by the Negro question. Before all 
others it looms as the bulwark of the one-party system. 
It was a determining factor in the prohibition vote. It 
affected the South’s stand on woman suffrage and it ramifies 
into hundreds of questions of public policy, it influences 
the South’s position on child labor, it is a stumbling block 
in the administration of compulsory school laws, standing 
as an ever-present shadow across the door of political 
councils. 

The present status of Negro participation in government 
may, therefore, be stated as one of change, — of transition 
from the complete disfranchisement of the 1880’s and the 
1890’s to some status of limited franchise under legal eligi- 
bility tests. 

It may be said, in passing, that politics and the race 
question do not mix well. In fact, when the mixture is 
attempted, both politics and the race question suffer. It 


THE NEGRO AND GOVERNMENT 167 


would seem, therefore, that the evolution of the Negro’s 
place in government must be by the processes of growth 
rather than by any sudden universal enfranchisement, 
especially in those communities where the most ignorant 
and the most backward colored people are massed and 
constitute a majority. Any agitation on the part of Negro 
leaders for sudden enfranchisement of the masses only 
tends to cement the determination of these communities 
to go to any lengths rather than permit it. On the other 
hand, the more rigid the regulation against Negroes voting 
the more they want to vote and the more they magnify the 
demand for the ballot out of all proportion to its real sig- 
nificance as a means to progress. 

For the nation, therefore, the fair position would seem — 
to be that the South is entitled to work out this extremely 
important and extremely delicate question in the way in 
which they have begun, without further disastrous inter- 
ference such as occurred during the reconstruction period. 
For the white South, what is needed above all is fairness, a 
determination to enforce suffrage tests equitably on white 
and black alike, and a resolve to break away from the one- 
party system and to regain preéminence in the national 
forums of political action by building a political system 
around the live national issues and forgetting the more or 
less dead issue of Negro domination. For the Negro himself 
the need is for patience, increasing emphasis on the duties 
of citizenship, and a faith in democracy deep enough to carry 
conviction that participation in the government will be 
extended as rapidly as it can be done without the precipita- 
tion of reactions which would be harmful to the community 
as a whole and to the Negroes themselves. 


168 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BRAWLEY, BENJAMIN. A Short History of the Negro, Chapter XIII. 

Census of Wealth, Debt, and Taxation. 

DuBots, W. E. B. Negro Landholder in Georgia. 

Haynes, G. E. The Trend of the Races, Chapter IV. 

Lone, F. T. (Phelps Stokes Studies #5, University of Georgia.) The 
Negroes of Clarke County, Georgia, during the Great War. 

Morton, R. L. History of Negro Suffrage in Virginia Since the 
Civil War. 

Reports of the State Boards of Control, Education, Health and Pub- 
lic Welfare. . 

Reports of the State Tax Collectors of North Carolina, Virginia, and 
Georgia. ! 

Scott, Emmett. History of the Negro in the World War. 

SNAVELY, T. R. Taxation of Negroes in Virginia. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. To what extent is the Negro’s present political status com- 
plicated by the reconstruction controversies ? 


2. In what states do Negroes hold what approximates the 
balance of political power ? 


3. Study the reports of a state which has separate Negro 
institutions and determine the extent to which Negroes benefit 
from state appropriations. 


4. From a standard text on economics summarize the theory 
as to the burden of taxation and discuss the factors which 
determine the taxes borne by Negroes. 


5. Compare the record of the Negro during the World War 
with that of other groups. What does this indicate as to 
loyalty? 

6. Discuss the proposition that the Negro should receive in 
appropriations only such amounts as he pays in taxes. 


CHAPTER IX 


EDUCATION 


The racial differences which complicate the tasks of racial 
adjustment most are the cultural and mental differences. 
When these are equalized, the Negro is more able to take 
care of himself. He is a better producer, presents fewer 
health problems, is less of a burden on the courts, has a 
fuller religious life, and is less likely to become a dependent 
or a defective. Education is the greatest force in equal- 
izing these mental and cultural differences. The school 
aids all other processes of adjustment. When schools are 
properly developed, churches are stronger, health organi- 
zations less burdened, asylums and almshouses emptier, 
the courts relieved of congestion, and government generally 
more efficient. Thus education is the greatest of the tasks 
of racial adjustment. 

After years of intimate dealing with public school officials 
throughout the South, Dr. James H. Dillard, of the Jeanes 
and Slater Funds, writes: 

There has been within ten years, and even more within five 
years, a decided advance in the readiness and desire of school 
boards and superintendents to give the colored children a square 
deal in education. There has been an advance both in length 
of term in colored schools and in the salaries paid to colored 
teachers. There has been an advance in the interest taken by 
superintendents in the better housing and better supervision 


~ of the colored schools. 


169 


170 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


As illustrations in proof of the progressive attitude let me 
cite three facts. First: Public school officials are appropriat- 
ing this year $425,000 in codperation with the Rosenwald dona- 
tions toward building rural schoolhouses for colored children. 
Second: Up to seven years ago the Jeanes Fund paid practically 
all the salary for the rural supervising teachers that were em- 
ployed in various counties, little or no appropriations coming 
for this purpose from public funds. This year the public 
school officials are paying for these workers $120,000. Third: 
Eight years ago, through the codperation of the Slater Fund, 
four graded county training schools were established, to each 
of which the public school officials appropriated $750, or $3000 
in all. This year (1921) the public school officials are appropriat- 
ing over $650,000 to 141 of such schools. 


This quickened interest, especially in the South, in the 
training of the Negro for more effective citizenship has 
come partially through the recognition of the essential 
justice of the plea of the previous chapter for equitable 
distribution of public funds, and partially through a realiza- 
tion that a better training for Negro citizens will react to 
the advantage of the whole community. It becomes in- 
creasingly clear that ignorance and inefficiency in any class 
fasten their burdens upon the whole nation and seriously 
hamper the working of democratic principles. 

Many have depreciated and a few still depreciate any 
effort put forth for Negro schooling. Some of these say 
that the Negro is incapable of learning beyond a certain 
point. It was Thomas Jefferson who expressed the belief 
that no Negro could be found who could trace the propo- 
sitions of Euclid, and John Calhoun who said that none 
could give the syntax of a Greek verb. Others fear that 
education will give him too much power, and still others 


EDUCATION 74 


frankly admit the desire to keep the colored man in the 
cotton field and state that education spoils a good field hand. 
Sixty years of Negro schooling have brought results which 
practically nullify the fears of these doubters. A sufficient 
number of Negroes have gone through colored colleges and 
even through some of the larger Eastern universities to 
dispel any doubt as to the ability of at least a considerable 
proportion of the race to assimilate a higher education. 


NATIVE MENTAL ABILITY 


It is known that there are differences in the native mental 
ability or intelligence of the two races, but just what these 
differences are, in quantity or in quality, is not known. 
They are, however, not great enough to warrant any 
assumption that training along the same fundamental lines 
as that given to white children will not be beneficial to 
colored children. 

In fact, as Woodworth points out, the world’s peoples 
have essentially similar mental equipments. All have the 
same senses, instincts, and emotions; all can remember past 
experiences, and all can imagine objects not present to the 
senses. All can discriminate, compare, reason, and invent; 
and in all one impulse can inhibit another. To his mind, the 
important racial differences are those by which some indi- 
viduals apply their powers in utilizing certain materials 
more successfully than others. While one may be gifted in 
mathematics another will show a special aptitude for music. 

According to his experiments, there is much overlapping 
in racial groups. When a specific mental trait is used as the 
basis of comparison, one group may show a lower average 
than another, but the superior members of the lower group 


172 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


surpass the inferior members of the higher group. This is 
true of brain weight which “would seem to be a trait of 
great importance in relation to intelligence.’’ The average 
weight of the Negro brain is about two ounces lighter than 
the average of white brains, but the variation in each group 
is about 25 ounces. Thus the heaviest Negro brains con- 
siderably outweigh the lightest white brains. 

Primitive races are commonly reputed to be far superior 
to civilized people in their sensory powers, but tests made 
by the same investigator in this field showed that the 
popular assumption was erroneous. While the Indians, 
Filipinos, and other primitive peoples averaged stronger 
in vision than whites, the members of these groups who 
were weaker in vision than the average were considerably 
weaker than the stronger visioned members of the white 
group. This same overlapping relationship held in experi- 
ments with the other senses. 

Measuring intelligence is, therefore, a most intricate task, 
one requiring quantitative tests made on large numbers 
of individuals by trained scientists. The closest approxi- 
mation of such a scientific standard was developed in the 
army mental tests which were given to the recruits drafted 
for service in the World War. While these tests were 
primarily designed to measure military value, many com- 
mentators take them as a measure of native mental abil- 
ity, or intelligence. They furnish data based upon a large 
number of cases, gathered by trained pyschologists. Their 
results have been painstakingly compiled by Yerkes. They 
show a considerable difference in the scores made by white 
and colored soldiers. Of the representative sample studied, 
only 21 per cent of the Negroes made average or superior 


EDUCATION £73 


scores, while 79 per cent made inferior scores. Of the 
whites, 76 per cent made average or superior scores, while 
24 per cent made inferior scores. Even in this test, it will 
be noted that there was much overlapping, since the high- 
est 21 per cent of the Negroes ranked above the lowest 
24 per cent of the whites. 

When quantitative differences in the army tests were 
equalized by comparison of white and colored men who 
made the same total scores, it was found that Negroes ex- 
celled the whites in certain types of tests, while the whites 
excelled in other types. This indicated that there are also 
qualitative differences, and these, in the opinion of many 
students, will be found to constitute the important dis- 
tinctions in racial intelligence. When they are thoroughly 
defined they will be the guideposts to the special capabilities 
of the Negro and will enable him to find his proper niche 
in American life. 

There are, however, grave doubts as to the fairness of 
using the army mental tests or, for that matter, of using any 
mental tests yet devised, as indices of the relative native 
mental ability of two races. These doubts arise from 
the fact that it is exceedingly difficult to test native intelli- 
gence apart from learning. The army tests show that the 
educated soldiers measured higher in intelligence than the 
uneducated. This result leads to the supposition that they 
tested not native capacity alone, but native capacity plus 
a coefficient of schooling. 

If that is the case, it is to be expected that the Negroes 
with less home training and less schooling would, apart 
from any differences in native mental capacity, make a 
lower grade than the white soldiers. It would also be 


174 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


expected that the Northern Negro, with relatively more 
schooling, would test higher than the Southern Negro, and 
an examination of the results of the army tests shows that 
to be true. The score made by the Northern Negroes aver- 
ages about halfway between the average of the white 
soldier and that of the Southern colored soldier. Until 
psychological tests are further revised so as to measure the 
factors of native mental capacity more accurately and 
separate them more sharply from the learned reactions, 
other comparisons made between white and colored groups, 
with differing degrees of home and school training, will be 
subject to the criticism that they do not measure the inborn 
racial differences, but measure the relative amounts which 
the individuals have been able to learn. 

Making due allowance for the differences in score which 
may be due to differences in training, the net results of these 
tests may be summed up as follows: They justify the 
presumption that some mental differences exist. They 
lead to the supposition that the important differences are 
probably qualitative rather than quantitative, and they 
indicate that these differences are not sufficiently marked 
to warrant the previous popular assumption of the essential 
inferiority of the Negro mind, and certainly not sufficiently 
marked to justify the current belief of the past generation 
that the majority of Negroes are not capable of profiting 
by an education. 


FEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION UNFOUNDED 


It is true that education does give the individual Negro 
more power, but this is by no means disadvantageous to the 
white man. The trained man, white or black, is more 


EDUCATION 175 


valuable to his community; and the trained colored man, 
if his training has been sound and has included character 
building as well as learning, is the natural leader of his own 
people and may be depended upon to lead them in paths 
which are harmonious with the development of the whole 
community. The trained leader is more self-controlled. 
This manifests itself in the clean record of the large num- 
ber of educated Negroes. Only a negligible number of the 
thousands of graduates of Hampton, Tuskegee, and the 
colored colleges have ever become involved in difficulties 
with the law, and the records of one of the oldest medical 
schools show that only one of their 2500 graduates has 
ever been arrested. The Negro’s increased power of self- 
control, and increased power over material things certainly 
do not work a disadvantage to the white man, while 
increased power to know his situation and adapt himself 
to it makes him a much more valuable member of the 
community. 

The fear of spoiling a good laborer by education is 
extremely short-sighted. The South cannot advance in 
efficiency until the Negro is better trained. If there is any 
doubt as to the value which training adds to the work of 
a colored man, it can be dispelled by an examination of 
railroad wages. So-called soulless corporations do not pay 
by sentiment. They arrange their wage scale according to 
the values which the services of various laborers create for 
them. With this in mind the traveler can observe the 
railroad track laborer, an unskilled workman with little 
training. His wage is proportionately low. Then there is 
the train porter, more highly trained, more efficient in 
service, and twice as well paid as the section hand. Then, 


176 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


if the traveler is in the South, the chances are that there 
is another Negro in the cab of the engine, — the fireman. 
He must be strictly trained for his job, trained to know the 
road and to know his engine. He must be proficient enough 
to enable him, in case of accident, to assume the duties of 
the engineer and to bring in the precious burden of the train. 
He, accordingly, is twice as well paid as the porter and four 
times as well paid as the section hand. The difference in 
pay of these men is based on their difference in value to the 
railroad and their difference in value is largely a product of 
difference in training. In other words, education takes a 
dollar a day man and makes him worth four dollars a day. 

Thus it is apparent that the depreciators of Negro edu- 
cation use very shallow arguments. Their assertions as to 
the essential inferiority of the Negro mind do not rest 
upon verified facts, and their fears that education damages 
the Negro and damages the community can be dispelled by 
actual observation of trained Negroes at work. 

The two great tasks which confront the educators of the 
colored population are: (1) Provision of a training for the 
masses which will lift their general standard of living and pre- 
pare them to do their everyday job with more efficiency and 
more character. (2) Provision of a training for the leaders 
which will enable them to encourage and aid their people on 
the upward path. This involvesspecial training for teaching, 
preaching, medicine, and other fields of professional service. 


WEAKNESS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 


The training of the masses is, of necessity, the job of the 
public schools. Public school systems, even for white pupils 
in the South, are still relatively backward in their develop- 


EDUCATION 177 


ment. It was only in the decade from 1865 to 1875 that 
elementary schooling was made public on a state-wide basis, 
and only recently have some states extended aid to high 
schools. The South is further burdened with the necessity 
of supporting a double system of schools from woefully 
inadequate revenues. Before the Civil War it was the 
richest section of the nation. The war, however, destroyed 
this wealth and the South became the poorest section. 
From 1870 to 1900 Southern states were actually poorer 
in per-capita wealth than they were in 1860. In the mean- 
time other sections of the country had been steadily forging 
ahead in the accumulation of wealth. 

The newness and the comparative poverty of Southern 
public school systems are great drawbacks to Negro educa- 
tion. In some communities there is also an indifference to 
Negro education which leads to an unjust distribution of 
the limited school funds. Notwithstanding these influences 
the finances of the colored public schools are steadily 
improving, but are still woefully inadequate for meeting 
the great needs of the two and a quarter million educable 
Negro children. 

The expenditure for white schools in the South is meager 
enough in comparison to the expenditure in other sections, 
but the following table indicates that the expenditure for 
Negroes is far lower than that for white people. The per 
capita for the South as a whole in 1922 was $29.72 for each 
white child and $7.12 for each colored child 6 to 14 years 
of age. The ratio of white expenditure to Negro expendi- 
ture ranges from over 8 to 1 in South Carolina to about 
2 to 1 in Oklahoma and Tennessee and almost equal in 
Kentucky. 


178 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


EXPENDITURES FOR TEACHERS’ SALARIES IN PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS PER CHILD SIX TO FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE 


INCREASE 
STATE YEAR 

White Negro White | Negro 

Oklahoma IQ12-1913 $14.21 9.96 
1920-1921 41.94 24.85 196 149 

Texas . IQI3-I914 10.08 5-74 
1922-1923 32.45 14.35 222 148 

Kentucky? . IQII-1I912 8.13 8.53 

Tennessee! . IQI3-1914 8.27 4.83 

North Carolina IQII-I9I2 5.27 2.02 
IQ2I-1922 26.74 10.03 407 397 

Virginia . IQII-I1912 9.64 2.74 
IQ2I-1922 28.65 9.07 197 231 

Arkansas IQI2-1913 12.95 4.59 
IQ2I-1922 20.60 7.19 59 56 

Louisiana IQII-1912 13.73 LGt 
1922-1923 36.20 6.47 104 303 

Florida IQIO-IQII II.50 2.64 
1921-1922 37.88 6.27 229 138 

Georgia IQII-I912 9.58 1.76 
IQ2I-1922 23.68 5-54 147 215 

Mississippi . 1912-1913 10.60 2.26 
I9Q2I-1922 28.41 4.42 168 96 

Alabama IQII-1912 9.41 1.78 
IQ2I-1922 22.43 4.31 138 142 

South Carolina IQII-1912 10.00 1.44 
1921-1922 30.28 3.63 202 152 





PER CAPITA 





Per CEntT OF 


1 Per cent figures not available. 


These figures are encouraging in that they show that 
during the past ten years there have been substantial in- 
creases in the per-capita expenditure for Negro children. 
This increase has, however, not been sufficient to correct 
the discrepancy between the expenditures for white and 
colored education because the white expenditures have 


EDUCATION 179 


also been increasing at a rapid rate. It is interesting to note 
that in several of the States the expenditure for Negro 
schools in 1922 just about equaled the expenditure for white 
schools ten years before. 

The variation in expenditure from state to state is subject 
to further variation in counties. The Black Belt counties do 
far less in proportion for their great mass of Negroes than do 
the counties with a lighter percentage of colored population. 


PER CAPITA EXPENDITURE FOR TEACHERS’ SALARIES IN 
COUNTIES GROUPED ACCORDING TO PERCENTAGE OF 
NEGROES IN. THE TOTAL POPULATION 


United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin 38, 1916 


WHITE PER NEGRO PER 


CAPITA CAPITA 
Counties under 10 per cent Negro . . . 7.96 7,22 
Counties 10 to 25 percent Negro .. . 9.55 S55 
Counties 25 to 50 percent Negro .. . be Me 3.19 
Counties 50 to 75 percent Negro . . . 12.53 1.77 
Counties 75 percent and over . . . . 22.22 1.78 


It is very significant that counties containing over 50 
per cent of Negroes in their population spend so much on 
white pupils and so little on Negro pupils. This means that 
in the country districts of these counties a few expensive 
schools are maintained for the scattered white pupils, while 
the congested Negroes can be herded into small one- 
teacher schools with wholly inadequate equipment. State 
school funds are distributed to these counties on the basis 
of their combined white and black school population or 
attendance. In other words, they receive as much from the 
state fund for each colored child as they do for each white 
child. The local school board then takes the state fund, 


180 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


adds a local tax, and apportions it to white and colored 
schools as they please. Justice should demand that such 
funds be apportioned more closely in proportion to the 
population of the two races. ! 
Many school districts own no school for colored pupils, but 
use a church, abandoned cabin, or lodge hall. This property 
is wholly unsuited to school purposes and is a mere make- 
shift. The rooms are poorly lighted, equipped with rough, 
wooden, backless benches, and sometimes utterly lacking 
in sanitary facilities. Many of the buildings which are 
owned by the county are in little better condition. A 
compilation of the amount invested in public school build- 
ings in the fifteen Southern and border states shows a value 
of $327,067,500 for white schools and $27,828,000 for 
colored schools, or about $65.50 for each white child of 
school age and $8.28 for each colored child. This average 
includes city schools. If rural schools were valued sepa- 
rately and the border states eliminated, the investment per 
colored child in the rural South would be about $3.50. In 
other words, the average value of a rural school building 
serving a typical district of one hundred and fifty children 
is about $525. There is no need to dwell upon the limita- 
tions which such a poor plant imposes in the way of inad- 
equate lighting, seating, ventilation, and sanitation. 
Limited funds also make it impossible to operate the 
schools in the country and in small towns for the full term 
of nine months. The United States Bureau of Education 
estimates that the average time during which schools are 
open in the South is one hundred and twenty days for 
colored pupils and one hundred and forty-five for white. 
For the colored pupils this runs as low as four months in 


EDUCATION 181 


South Carolina and as high as seven months in Virginia and 
seven and half in Oklahoma. 

Furthermore, the attendance is very irregular in the 
country districts where pupils are often withdrawn to help 
with the farm work. This is especially true of tenant 
districts. Pupils, therefore, do not get the full benefit even 
of the short term offered. The Bureau of Education esti- 
mates that the average time that colored pupils are actually 
in attendance is eighty days per year, or four months. On 
this basis it would take eighteen years for the average colored 
pupil to complete the full elementary course of eight nine- 
month school years. That is to say, he would be about 
twenty-four years old before entering the high school. This 
condition, however, is rapidly improving, as it was only a 
few years ago that the colored attendance averaged only 
about fifty days per year. 

Colored public schools are also handicapped by the poor 
quality of teaching. While there is an increasing number 
of devoted, fairly well-trained teachers, the majority of 
them are concentrated in the towns. There are 35,000 
teachers in colored public schools, and only a very limited 
annual output from teacher training schools to maintain 
this force. In addition the low pay often makes it impossible 
for a girl from outside the community to come in and pay 
board. This means that in many cases the teacher must 
be found within the community. It happens, therefore, 
that hundreds of these rural schools are taught by young 
girls whose training has been limited to that given in the 
local schools. The average colored rural teacher has less 
than a full grammar school training and little special prep- 
aration for teaching. 


182 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Until ten years ago, when county training schools were 
established, there were no rural high schools for colored 
pupils, and city high school facilities were very limited. In 
one Southern state, as late as 1914, there was only one town 
which provided a full public high school course and there 
was no rural district with such provision. Rapid progress 
has been made in this line recently, but much remains to be 
done. Cities of the type of Louisville, Richmond, Norfolk, 
Raleigh, Charleston, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Birmingham, 
Nashville, New Orleans, Memphis, Dallas, Houston, Fort 
Worth, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock are rapidly cor- 
recting this defect in their public school systems. The 
smaller towns of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, are also mak- 
ing some progress, but there are fully two million colored 
children living in small towns and country districts where 
their educational opportunities are limited to a meager 
elementary schooling. 

The reports of the United States Bureau of Education 
show that in the United States there are 19,428,000 white 
pupils, of whom 1,829,500 (or 9.4 per cent) are in high 
school, while only 27,631 (or 1.3 per cent) of the 2,150,000 
colored pupils are receiving this training. 

Fair dealing demands that public high schools for colored 
pupils should be developed as rapidly as possible. As a 
measure for training a valuable group of local Negro leaders 
the expansion of the high school program is also needed. 
These schools are the principal agency for training teachers 
and skilled workers, and as long as many Negroes never 
can and never will go to college the secondary school will 
be the training ground for local leaders. 


EDUCATION 183 


To perform this function effectively, these schools should 
be much broader in scope than the strictly college prepar- 
atory institution. Increased emphasis should be given to 
history, civics, economics, and the natural sciences, so that 
everyday life will be more intelligently appreciated. The 
stimulation of race pride demands that colored pupils be 
taught more of the history and achievements of their own 
race. The growing body of literature by colored writers 
should be studied and the accomplishments of colored men 
of mark held up as inspiring examples. The exact nature 
of these special adaptations of the curriculum of colored 
schools, and the extent to which such adaptations are lack- 
ing, are fully developed in the report on Negro educa- 
tion compiled by Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones for the United 
States Bureau of Education. 

Since the masses of rural Negroes are farmers, and since 
the majority of those in cities are engaged in manual labor, 
vocational training is of great importance. Manual arts, 
domestic arts, and agriculture deserve a much more prom- 
inent place in the program than they now occupy. There 
is a widespread general interest in the industrial training 
of the masses of the Negroes, but because this work is 
slightly more expensive than the teaching of academic 
subjects it has been slow to spread. 

Many of the minor defects in the colored school could be 
corrected by sympathetic and careful supervision. Left 
to their own devices, the small rural schools have many 
unnecessary faults which could be eliminated by proper 
supervision. It would seem that Southern states and 
counties, with an investment of about thirty million dol- 
lars, and an annual outlay of over fourteen million dollars 


184. ‘THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


in colored schools, would insist that their boards of educa- 
tion and superintendents of schools should interest them- 
selves at least to the extent of making sure that the 
expenditure of this great sum is efficiently administered. 
Such, however, is not the case. The superintendents who 
take a really sympathetic interest and a healthy pride in 
their colored schools do so entirely on their own initiative. 
This number is, however, increasing. There are many super- 
intendents who, because of pressure of other duties and a few 
who because of indifference, visit only one or two colored 
schools each year. Although the superintendent is elected to 
supervise all public schools, there is little local criticism of a 
superintendent who neglects the colored schools. 

On the whole, when consideration is given to all these 
discouraging influences which beset the Negro pupil in the 
way of short terms, poor teachers, inadequate buildings, and 
equipment, and the unsettled family conditions which often 
prohibit regular attendance, the progress which he has 
made in education has been phenomenal. In 1880 70 per 
cent of the Negroes over ten years of age were illiterate, 
but in 1920 this percentage had fallen to 22.9 per cent. 
Such commendable progress is evidently the product of 
two things: first, the deep desire, almost amounting to a 
passion, for schooling which is widespread among the masses 
of Negro parents; and second, the willingness of communi- 
ties to provide facilities whereby Negroes may, after a fash- 
ion, receive schooling. 

But the task still looms large. Illiteracy amounting to 
22.9 per cent (or a total of 1,842,161 illiterates) is a menace, 
especially since census takers enumerate any one as lit- 
erate who can so much as write his name. Many of the 


EDUCATION 185 


77 per cent called literate are, therefore, unable to 
show much greater learning than is required to scrawl their 
names. Communities suffer the penalty of these condi- 
tions. Whether the illiterates are white or black, they bring 
the inevitable burdens of inefficiency, slovenliness, disease, 
and immorality. Thus Negro illiteracy constitutes both 
an enormous moral responsibility for training these belated 
people and a serious threat to the communities which 
neglect this training. 


CONSTRUCTIVE AGENCIES 


The progress which has been made is due to the states- 
manlike codperation between the educational authorities 
of the states and counties on the one hand, and the philan- 
thropic boards and foundations on the other. These con- 
structive factors are worthy of close study. 

State Supervisors of Colored Schools. The creation of 
the office of State Supervisor of Colored Schools arose from 
the feeling of Southern state superintendents that state 
departments of education could be effective in extending a 
helping hand to the counties in the task of building colored 
public schools. Through the generosity of the General 
Education Board, the salaries of such appointees of the state 
superintendents were provided. They are extremely val- 
uable in stimulating the interest of county superintend- 
ents throughout the South, and, in addition, they act as 
local agents for the Rosenwald School Building Fund, the 
Jeanes and Slater funds, and other constructive school 
funds. Although these supervisors have been at work only 
about ten years, the public school system of every Southern 
state has felt the imprint of their personality. 


186 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


The Anna T. Jeanes Foundation, which was established to 
aid the rural colored school, has been in operation since 1911, 
and has rendered a sterling service in raising standards, and 
in stimulating the codperation of local school authorities. 
This fund offers aid to the county in employing a super- 
vising teacher who travels among all the schools in the 
county, encouraging and aiding the rural teachers and 
assisting in the elementary instruction in manual arts, 
household arts, and gardening. Some 270 of these teachers 
are employed by Southern counties and about three-fourths 
of their salary is paid from public funds. They are, in effect, 
rural missionaries, and in the great majority of cases they 
are well trained and devoted. 

Slater Fund. This foundation is especially interested 
in aiding industrial education in public high schools and 
in private schools. About ten years ago its directors noted 
the woeful lack of trained teachers and the fact that low 
pay necessitated the choosing of many teachers from the 
local community. They, therefore, felt that each county 
should have some central school whose academic standards 
should be slightly higher and whose industrial work should 
be more thorough than the standards and work of sur- 
rounding rural public schools. Two hundred and four 
of these county training schools have been built. The 
county authorities, the Rosenwald Fund, and the General 
Education Board codperate in establishing these training 
schools. A recent study by Leo M. Favrot shows that 
while they are still weak in many respects, they represent 
the nearest approaches to county high and normal schools 
that are open to the Southern rural Negroes. The public 
expenditure for developing these institutions is gradually 


EDUCATION 187 


being extended, $594,000 being expended from public funds 
in 1924 as against $131,000 in1g19. Over 6100 pupils are 
enrolled in high school grades, and reports indicate that the 
great majority of county superintendents thoroughly ap- 
preciate their value as places to which the more advanced 
pupils of the county can go and receive slightly better 
training than that offered by the average rural schools. 

Rosenwald Building Fund. In order to stimulate the 
erection of better rural school buildings, Julius Rosenwald 
has offered to defray part of the cost (from a third to a 
fourth of the total) of rural school buildings. As it works out 
in the community, the Rosenwald Fund usually appro- 
priates about one-fifth, the public funds about one-half, and 
the white and colored people raise about a third of the cost 
of these buildings. 

Under this plan (up to 1925) 2565 schools have been 
built at a cost of over $10,000,000, and they are stimulat- 
ing a wide interest in better construction, better equipment, 
and better sanitation in colored rural schools. They serve 
as object lessons for the rest of the county in modern 
school construction. Over 1000 have a capacity for three 
or more teachers. No single force has been more influ- 
ential in improving Negro public schools than the pro- 
vision of this generous aid in building modern school 
buildings and the resultant tendency to equip these build- 
ings well and to man them with better teachers. 

General Education Board. This board appropriates to the 
Jeanes Foundation to aid supervising teachers, pays state 
supervisors of schools, who act as local agents and super- 
visors for the above funds, and aids with the equipment 
of county training schools. 


188 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Phelps Stokes Fund is a research foundation of broad 
scope which is interested principally in the larger schools, 
but which has codperated in various ways with all the above 
named foundations. This fund has been valuable in stimu- 
lating study of the Negro by white college men. 

With all these efficiently directed agencies codperating 
closely to promote better state and county supervision, 
better school buildings, and central training schools in 
each county, those who are genuinely interested in Negro 
education can secure valuable aid in launching some com- 
munity project if they can secure enough local interest to 
make the community do its part. 


STATE HIGHER SCHOOLS 


Negro education must work at the bottom and at the 
top of the scale at the same time. The primary need is, 
of course, the training of the masses in the public school, 
but this is not possible without the simultaneous develop- 
ment of a trained Negro leadership, and especially a trained 
group of Negro teachers and preachers. The pioneer 
efforts to develop a public school system are well under 
way in every state, but, to train leaders, the development 
of higher and professional schools must go hand in hand 
with the development of the public school system. 

States recognize this policy in their general system of 
education for white people. State institutions for white 
people include universities, colleges of agriculture, law, 
mechanic arts, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and normal 
schools. The demand for Negroes who have the training given 
in such schools is growing. In the Southern states senti- 
ment will not permit them to attend the same institutions 


EDUCATION 189 


as white people. The South must choose, therefore, 
between providing a separate system of higher education 
for Negroes and shirking the moral responsibility for 
developing a Negro leadership. If this moral responsibility 
is shirked, then the South is faced with the further practical 
difficulty of dealing with a colored population whose masses 
are trained at home in the public schools, but whose leaders, 
including the teachers of the public high schools, are trained 
in other states. 

This responsibility rests partially upon the whole nation, 
because the events of the Civil War and reconstruction 
made the tasks of racial adjustment national in scope, and 
because recent migrations have made the Negro population 
national in distribution. The philanthropists of the nation 
as a whole have shouldered this responsibility for training 
Negro leaders more whole-heartedly than have the Southern 
states. The study published by the United States Bureau 
of Education in 1916 indicated that about half the high 
school pupils and all but twelve of the sixteen hundred and 
forty-three college pupils were in private and denomina- 
tional schools, while the nine hundred and forty-four pro- 
fessional students were all in private schools. In other 
words, the states have, to date, assumed no further respon- 
sibility than that of offering agriculture, trade, and teacher 
training in conjunction with public high school work. 

In each Southern state there is a colored agricultural and 
mechanical school of secondary grade offering trades, domes- 
tic arts, and teacher-training courses. These schools are 
partially supported by state appropriations and partially by 
the Morrel Federal Fund for Agricultural and Mechanical 
Education. In addition, several states maintain separate 


190 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


normal schools for colored people. In proportion to the 
expenditure for white institutions the support of these 
colored state schools is very meager. 

According to the Bureau of Education report, “‘The 
Southern states appropriate annually $6,429,991 for higher 
schools for white pupils and only a little over a third of a 
million for higher schools for colored pupils (1914-15).” 
The amounts have increased since this survey, but the 
proportion between white and colored remains about the 
same. In other words, while the Negroes form about a third 
of the population of this section, they receive only about a 
sixteenth of the money expended for training above the high 
school. In one Southern state they form nearly half the 
total population and own about a twentieth of the property, 
but receive only one thirty-fifth of the money expended for 
higher education. In other words, they receive a smaller 
proportion of the appropriation than that to which their 
share of the taxes entitles them. 

The federal government, through the Smith-Hughes Act 
of 1917, appropriates money for aid in teaching agriculture, 
domestic arts, industry, and teacher training. For every 
dollar of federal money spent, the state or community must 
spend a dollar. These funds are allotted to the states as 
follows: for teacher training, on the basis of total popula- 
tion; for agriculture, on the basis of rural population; for 
trades and home economics, on the basis of urban popula- 
tion. The Negroes are, therefore, entitled to share in these 
funds on the basis of their proportion in the population. 

The need for industrial and agricultural education and 
teacher training is universally recognized in the South. 
But Southern politicians have not reached the point of 


EDUCATION IQ 


granting the justice of the demand for increased appropria- 
tions to meet this need. This condition is, however, chang- 
ing. Within the past few years several of the state Negro 
schools have received substantial increases in their appro- 
priations, and there is hardly a state which has not increased 
its appropriation slightly. In order that practical agricul- 
ture may be well taught, that instruction in the trades and 
household arts be thorough, and that teacher training be 
modern, there is a great need for an increase both of federal 
and of state appropriations for the work. 


HAMPTON AND TUSKEGEE 


In advancing this type of education the ideals of Hampton 
Institute and Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School have 
been very influential. Beginning with the pioneer ideas and 
spirit of General Armstrong’s work for freedmen at Hamp- 
ton and developing and spreading through the growth of 
that school and through the founding of Tuskegee by Booker 
T. Washington, these institutions have given the world 
valuable ideals of industrial training and character building. 
The work of each is twofold in its significance, as it consists 
not only of training students within the school, but also of 
rendering a broader service to the leadership of the colored 
people by maintaining many extension activities. 

These institutions are cities within themselves, each 
having about eighteen hundred pupils and several hundred 
instructors. Each has been able to make such a large 
number of friends for its plan of education that property 
worth several million dollars apiece has been accumulated, 
and annual maintenance funds of over three hundred thou- 
sand dollars apiece are contributed. The visitor on the 


192 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


campus of either of these schools is inspired by the sight of 
hundreds of neatly arranged, substantial buildings, many of 
which have been entirely constructed by the manual labor 
of the students. Orderly activity is apparent on the farm, 
in the dozens of trade shops, and in the classroom. Here 
one feels that the young colored boys and girls are given 
the opportunity to share in the best which the two races 
have been able to evolve in education. 

Until recently both these institutions have confined their 
academic work to the high school courses. Within the past 
few years, however, Hampton has added a college course in 
order that the academic training of those who go out to 
teach may be more thorough. 

The plan of going to school three days and working at 
a trade three days in the week has been one of the distinc- 
tive contributions of these schools to industrial education. 
While this has limited the academic training received from 
book study, it has made for a thoroughness in trade instruc- 
tion and a type of character building which has produced 
leaders whose services have been of untold value to the 
South. 

The plan of allowing first-year students who are without 
funds to work all day and go to school at night opens the 
door of these schools to energetic youths, even though they 
be practically penniless ; and hundreds, like Booker Wash- 
ington, lacking even railroad fare, have walked long dis- 
tances to enter. As a result, they have risen from the bot- 
tom to positions of great usefulness. 

But the activities outside the walls are as significant as 
those within. A score or more of small editions of Hampton 
and Tuskegee have been started by graduates of these 


EDUCATION 193 


schools, and the parent schools are constantly aiding and 
encouraging these branches. The many teachers, super- 
visors, farm and home demonstration agents, nurses, trades- 
men, farmers, and preachers who have graduated are aided 
in their services to colored communities by movable schools, 
farm demonstration service, and frequent conferences and 
short courses. Arising from Booker Washington’s interest 
in health, the observance of National Negro Health Week 
has spread throughout the colored population and become 
an institution. From the business interest has sprung the 
National Negro Business League. No short chapter could 
begin to describe and evaluate the manifold activities of 
these schools. But it may be said that he who would learn 
of Negro education and Negro progress might well begin 
his study by a trip to Hampton or Tuskegee. 


PRIVATE AND DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS 


White philanthropists and denominational boards have 
been very generous in providing for the higher education 
of colored people. In fact, had it not been for their contribu- 
tions the facilities for training Negro leadership would be 
very much undeveloped. The annual income of these private 
schools is about three and a half million, of which about two 
and a quarter million is expended in denominational schools 
and a million and a quarter in independent schools. These 
institutions care for the entire college and professional 
training of the Negro. The larger proportion of this money 
is contributed by individuals and denominations in the 
North. In fact, of the two and a quarter million expended 
annually for maintenance of denominational schools, only 
about $100,000 comes from Southern white denominations, 


194 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


and $500,c00 from colored denominations, leaving about 
$1,600,000 from Northern white mission boards. 

For some time after the Civil War these boards gave 
considerably more than money. They sent some of the 
choicest spirits in their ranks as missionary teachers. 
Facing discouragement, ostracism, and many other diffi- 
culties, these white teachers preserved the link of connection 
between the white race and the training of Negroes in the 
higher schools. They have left their indelible imprints upon 
such institutions as Fisk, Howard, Atlanta, Tougaloo, 
Talladega, Lincoln, Straight, Hampton, Clark, and Me- 
harry Medical College, as well as upon a number of smaller 
denominational high schools. The character and devotion 
of many of the well-trained Negroes of to-day is due largely 
to the efforts of these missionaries, and the South and the 
Negro race owe them much gratitude. As colored people 
receive more training, these white teachers are gradually 
being replaced by Negro teachers. But several hundred of 
them still remain and serve in a spirit of devotion. 

As these white teachers are withdrawn there still remains 
a number of white people who serve on boards of trustees of 
colored institutions. These are also very useful in main- 
taining the necessary friendly contacts between the colored 
schools and the white race. 

Most of these higher schools for colored people have been 
seriously hampered by inadequate funds. This has limited 
their teaching force, library facilities, and scientific appara- 
tus; and it has, therefore, seriously narrowed the scope of 
college and professional work. In fact the Bureau of Edu- 
cation’s survey disclosed only three institutions whose 
teaching force and equipment made them worthy of 


EDUCATION 195 


classification as “‘college.”” Since this survey others have 
improved sufficiently to receive this classification. Fifteen 
others had a comparatively small college enrollment with 
large elementary and high school departments, while 15 
others offered a few college subjects above their high school. 
Thus only 33 institutions at the outside offered any degree 
of college training and they enrolled only about 2500 in 
college classes, a number entirely inadequate to provide a 
corps of trained leaders for ten million people. The need 
is not so much for new colored colleges as for an expan- 
sion and strengthening of the facilities of the colleges now 
established. 

The same weakness in social and natural sciences which 
was commented upon in the high school is evident in the 
colored college. Limited teaching force confines many of 
them to the narrow classical college curriculum with much 
time devoted to mathematics and foreign languages and 
relatively few electives offered. Recent expansions in the 
appropriations for these schools have begun to enable them 
to broaden the courses which they offer, but most of them 
are in need of much greater expansion. 

In 1916, excluding teacher training, there were only 
1400 students in professional schools of college grade, of 
whom 431 were medical, 287 dental, 160 pharmaceutical, 
441 theological, and 80 legal. This meager output empha- 
sizes the great need for the development of several real 
university centers for Negroes, where professional training 
could be given along with courses of college grade. No 
such center is now available. Atlanta with five colleges, 
Nashville with Fisk, Roger Williams, and Meharry College, 
and Washington with Howard University offer possibilities 


196 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


as university centers. The diversity of ownership and 
control in Atlanta and Nashville have militated against 
requisite codperation between the institutions, and the 
limited appropriations of Congress to Howard University 
have hampered its development. 

When the conditions of Negro education for both the 
masses and the leaders are compared with their condition 
forty years ago, it is realized that remarkable progress has 
been made in the elimination of illiteracy, in the beginnings 
of a public school system, in establishing policies in trade 
and agricultural training, and in founding institutions for 
training leaders. On the other hand, when the facilities for 
Negroes are compared to the facilities for white people, the 
stupendous task of Negro education is apparent. The effec- 
tiveness of the various funds and denominational boards 
now at work and the rapidly growing public opinion in 
favor of greater educational opportunity lead the student 
to feel that the future will see this task taken firmly in hand. 

The $500,000 which the Negroes give annually to schools 
operated by their own denominations, the $2,300,000 which 
they have given toward the erection of Rosenwald public 
school buildings, and the sums which they raise in many 
communities to supplement the meager public funds and 
extend the school term a few weeks show that even from 
their limited means they are willing to contribute for edu- 
cation. The crowding in such schools as they have indi- 
cates a burning desire among the parents that their children 
be educated. A race that shows such a desire to learn and 
a willingness to take advantage of, and to supplement every 
opportunity for schooling certainly deserves a chance to 
lift itself through education. 


EDUCATION 197 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BoAs, FRANZ. The Mind of Primitive Man, pp. 17-29 and Chapter V. 

Bulletins Nos. 38 and 39, 1916. United States Bureau of Education. 
“Negro Education in the United States,” Vol. I, Chapters I and 
III. Also consult Vol. II for particular state chapters. 

Current Biennial Surveys, United States Bureau of Education. (Facts 
in this chapter from Bulletin 29, 1923; see pp. 45, 98, 99, 103, 497.) 

Haynes, GEorGE E. The Trend of the Races, pp. 63-79. 

Morpny, E. G. The Present South, Chapter IT. 

Opum, Howarp W. Social and Mental Traits of the Negro. 

Reports, General Education Board, Slater, Jeanes, Rosenwald, and 
Phelps Stokes funds. 

State Department of Education Reports. 

WEATHERFORD, W. D. Present Forces in Negro Progress, Chapter V. 

WoopworTH, R. S. Racial Differences in Mental Traits. Reprint 
from Science, February 4, 1gto. 

YERKES, ROBERT M. Mental Tests. Memoirs National Academy of 
Science, Vol. XV, Part III, Chapters 8 and 1o. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. From the results of the army tests (Memoirs of the 
National Academy of Science, Vol. XV, Part III, Chapter 10) 
study the types of mental tests in which the Negro excelled 
and the types in which they were excelled. 

2. Study the reduction of Negro illiteracy by states. What 
effect does this have on crime and efficiency? Supplement this 
with observations in your community. 

8. Discuss the difficulties confronting the Negro child who 
desires an education. 

4. Practically all the industrial schools are equipped to teach 
the hand trades. In the light of the table, Chapter VI, page 110, 
showing Negro occupations in 1910 and 1920, how well is this 
teaching adapted to the present industrial situation. 


198 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


5. In the light of the occupations of Negroes and democratic 
fair dealing, discuss the merits of the controversy between 
advocates of industrial and of college education for Negroes. 


6. Summarize the activities of the funds interested in Negro 
education and rate the value of their activities. Trace the 
effect of each on the colored schools of a particular community. 


7. Communicate with Hampton Institute, Tuskegee Insti- 
tute, or Fisk University, securing data as to occupations of their 
graduates, and draw conclusions. 


8. Discuss the appropriations of your denomination and those 
of your state to Negro schools. 


9. Study the schools of your community and report on: 
(a) condition of building as compared to white buildings; 
(6) length of term; (c) training of teachers;, (d) regularity of 
attendance; (e) high school work; (/) industrial work. 


CHAPTER X 


THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 


No phase of race relations touches the heart of the South 
so intimately as the humanitarian task of alleviating the 
lot of the unfortunate classes. Although the heart is 
touched the intellect does not always direct the wisest action. 
The Negro street beggar is generously provided for, and 
the “hat in hand diplomat”? who applies to “his white 
folks” usually goes away with everything he has asked for, 
often with more than he deserves. The liberality with 
which these colored beggars are treated is often more of 
a liability than an asset to racial adjustment, because such 
emotional but unscientific giving often leaves the givers 
with a paternalistic feeling toward the whole race and a 
belief that by giving small alms they have discharged 
their full civic duty toward their colored neighbors. 

This kindly, paternalistic spirit in some people and 
apathy in others has, in a large measure, thwarted the 
growth of really scientific social welfare work for the un- 
fortunate classes of colored people. But, with the develop- 
ment of organized social work for white unfortunates, some 
of the old personal kindness is working itself out into serv- 
ice on boards and in organizations for the thoroughgoing 
care of the poverty stricken, the orphan, the delinquent, 
the insane, and the feeble-minded colored people. 

199 


200 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


The younger generation of Negroes is taking much more 
interest in this type of work among their own people. For- 
merly this interest was centered, in an unorganized way, in 
their churches, but it has recently become more specialized, 
although the colored church is still active in these matters. 


RELIEF 


The relief of families in distress has been carried on to a 
greater extent in colored churches than in white churches. 
Many times a destitute colored family, or one who has 
knowledge of such a family, appeals to the minister and 
is allowed to make an appeal to the congregation, after 
which a special collection is taken. Thus the Negroes have, 
to a remarkable extent, taken care of their own unfor- 
tunates. 

This, manifestly, isa haphazard procedure. Money is not 
always the primary need of a family in distress. Sometimes 
legal aid would help them more. Sometimes a wander- 
ing father or brother needs to be compelled to contrib- 
ute to their support. In short, in modern organizations, 
family relief has become a specialized branch of social 
work with a definite technique. While the generous im- 
pulse to distribute alms may give a family temporary relief, 
it may also tend to sap their self-reliance and make them 
perpetual beggars. These generous impulses and humani- 
tarian interests are valuable and need to be retained, but 
they should be guided by a special worker trained to 
investigate such cases, diagnose their real need, and put 
them in contact with the agency which can meet that need. 
As the Southern charity organizations expand they do more 
and more of this scientific family case work among Negroes. 


THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 201 


White workers, however, often find it difficult to secure 
the full confidence of colored families or to get an intimate 
knowledge of their true situation. The most efficient 
family case work among colored people, therefore, requires 
a well-trained colored case worker employed by the estab- 
lished relief agencies. Many charity associations are em- 
ploying such colored workers, but training facilities have been 
so limited that most of them have been trained on the job. 

Public relief appropriations are also voted in small 
towns and counties and colored people occasionally share 
in them. This is also a very haphazard procedure and 
politics rather than scientific rehabilitation often deter- 
mines the distribution of these small doles. The indigent 
aged are, for the most part, cared for in county almshouses, 
there being only one or two very small institutions built 
especially for the aged colored people. The census figures 
show that in the South there is a slightly higher proportion 
of the colored population listed as paupers in almshouses 
than of the white, but a much lower proportion of colored 
people than of the foreign-born population. 

There is a great need for more information upon this 
subject of public poor relief both outside and inside of alms- 
houses in the South. In the absence of any collection of 
scientific data in this field very little can be said as to the 
status of the relief of the Negro cases. It does constitute 
a problem for both the student of politics and the student 
of sociology. The masses of colored people are so low in the 
economic scale that sickness, sudden loss, and old age often 
find them unprepared. 

All of their lodges are, however, mutual-benefit societies, 
and the small sick and death benefits which they pay often 


202 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


carry the recipient through a period of misfortune. A 
tremendously larger proportion of colored people than of 
white people carry these small mutual-benefit policies. 
Here again, colored people, without any outside aid, have 
worked out a mechanism for taking care of their own mis- 
fortune, — a means which is peculiarly adapted to the socia- 
bility of their temperament and the small wages which they 
earn. There are hundreds of these orders scattered through 
the country and the Negro Year Book estimates that they 
have accumulated about twenty million dollars’ worth of 
property. A number of them are national in scope and enroll 
several hundred thousand members. It is not at all unusual 
to find Negroes who work for a very small wage but pay dues 
in five or six of these orders. In addition to the secret benefit 
societies, large Negro industrial insurance companies have 
grown up, and several white companies do a lucrative busi- 
ness writing Negro industrial insurance. The Metropolitan 
Life alone numbers 1,500,000 Negro policy holders. 


ORPHANS 


The family ties are very loose among certain classes of 
colored people and the result is a relatively high illegitimacy 
rate and a large number of desertions. There is, however, a 
real sense of responsibility for caring for the children in 
these cases. Most of this burden falls upon the colored 
women. When children without father, mother, or near 
relatives are found, somewhat the same procedure is fol- 
lowed as in relief cases. The minister takes the matter up 
and finds some motherly soul in the congregation who will 
care for the child. Too often, however, this woman is one 
who already has a numerous brood and feels that one more 


THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 203 


will not bring much added responsibility. There is seldom 
a careful investigation as to the fitness of the home for 
receiving the child. 

Thus in child placing, also, the colored population, after 
its fashion, takes care of its own. Very few orphanages 
have been built, and these few are small. The proverty of 
the race has saved them from the mistake which the white 
people have made in building large institutions and herding 
great numbers of orphans together in them to such an 
extent that they lack the individual care and the love 
which come to the child in the home. 

There is need for a thorough study and organization of 
the colored child-placing activities so that the commendable 
tendency to keep children in normal families may be en- 
couraged and systematized. There is also a field for the 
limited development of colored orphanages as temporary 
homes for many children while they are being placed. A 
few will always be permanently domiciled in the institu- 
tions. The visitor to such institutions as the Leonard 
Street Orphanage in Atlanta, which is a model home in 
many respects, is impressed with this need for the further 
development of orphan homes to supplement the develop- 
ment of child placement. 

Every Southern state has a child-placing society but 
none of these employ colored workers or handle colored 
cases. Thus the colored people are left to their own 
devices, and while they take care of their own orphans to 
a remarkable extent, it is not at all uncommon for social 
workers to discover little black waifs who wander home- 
less in the cities. There is really no information as to how 
many such waifs there are or how they manage to exist. 


204 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


JUVENILE DELINQUENCY 


The lack of proper reformatory facilities has been men- 
tioned in Chapter VIII. All states have juvenile court 
laws, but only the larger counties have juvenile courts in the 
real sense of the word. In the smaller counties, the regis- 
trar, the county ordinary, or some other county official is 
appointed as juvenile judge and he gives only a very small 
amount of time to the work, usually without the aid of 
a probation officer. Young Negro offenders are seldom 
arrested until they become actually obnoxious to the 
community, and then they are often thrown into jail with 
hardened criminals to receive their first lessons in crime. 

Like the family case worker, the white probation officer 
often finds difficulty in securing the proper codperation 
from colored delinquents, their families, and their neigh- 
bors. This creates a real necessity for colored probation 
officers in large counties, and for voluntary colored advi- 
sory committees in the counties where there are only a 
few colored cases to be handled. The codperation of these 
people with the juvenile court brings an intimate under- 
standing and a sympathetic touch to the colored cases 
which can be gained from no other source. 

In the final analysis, the sociologist is primarily interested 
in preventing the conditions from which disease, poverty, 
insanity, desertion, and crime arise, rather than merely 
being contented with attempts to cure abnormal cases 
after they have developed. This, in effect, means that the 
tasks of reducing the numbers of unfortunates are pri- 
marily those of the agencies for education, public health, 
improvement of economic life, and living conditions. 


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THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 205 


One especial line of work which would be of value in 
aiding to prevent these abnormalities in society would 
be a campaign by the colored church, school, lodge, and 
lay leaders to place greater emphasis on the social impor- 
tance and sanctity of normal family life. Neither African 


tribal customs nor the customs of slavery tended to in- 


culcate into the Negro the highest ideals of family life. 


_ His church and his customs since emancipation have aided 


- greatly in this respect, but further emphasis on the impor- 


tance of the stability of the home would contribute mate- 
rially to the reduction of the incidence of disease, poverty 
arising from desertion, crime, juvenile delinquency, and 
dependency. 


INSANITY AND FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS 


Insanity is probably better cared for than any other 
abnormality of the Negro. The colored wards of all state 
insane asylums are crowded but usually as well adminis- 
tered as the white wards. Census figures tell very little 
as to the insanity rate among colored people, but they seem 
to indicate a somewhat lower rate than that of the white 
population. This may be due in part to lesser tendency to 
nervous disorders, and in part to the fact that a larger pro- 
portion of the Negro insane are not in institutions but 
at large in the community. The discrepancy between the 
rate for Negroes (131.4 per 100,000) and that for foreign- 
born whites (400 per 100,000) is so large that it is certain 
that there is a much stronger tendency toward insanity 
among the foreign-born than among the Negro population. 

The index to the number of colored feeble-minded is still 
less accurate since the census lists a very small number in 


206 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


institutions and these are all in the North. Quite a num- 
ber of colored feeble-minded patients are in insane asylums, 
but no Southern state provides a special institution for these 
defectives and the overwhelming majority are free in the 
community to breed vice, crime, and more feeble-mindedness. 

The interrelation of crime with poverty and feeble- 
mindedness is well understood and the power of crime, 
when improperly corrected, to breed more crime, is also 
a known fact. States, therefore, which do not provide the 
proper facilities for the reformation of young offenders and 
for the separation of the insane and feeble-minded from 
the normal community can hardly expect anything else 
than high Negro crime and disease rates, for which the 
final fault rests more upon the negligence of the state than 
upon any inherent criminality of the Negro race. 

As stated in the population chapter, the rapid urbaniza- 
tion of the Negro intensifies these problems of the abnor- 
mal classes. The Negro crime rate in the North and West is 
three times that in the South because the population in 
the North and West is largely urban. The urban insanity 
rate is also three times the rural rate. Each disaster to 
the cotton-growing industry drives thousands of Negro 
families from settled, quiet country districts, where they 
have been furnished with a house and with fuel by the land- 
lord, to the hurried city life, where numbers of them make 
a precarious living by doing odd jobs. They are eternally 
in difficulties trying to secure funds for paying rent or buy- 
ing food and fuel. They are herded in insanitary tenements 
where the opportunities for vice and crime are redoubled. 
In these social menaces of the city lies the real danger to 
the colored population of rapid industrialization. 


THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 207 


TRAINING FOR SOCIAL WoRK 


Every Negro leader should have a deeper knowledge and 
appreciation of social problems. This is especially true of 
the preachers and teachers because of the direct contact 
which they have with cases needing intelligent care. Col- 
ored colleges and theological schools, however, put little 
emphasis on the social sciences. The need for colored case 
workers, probation officers, institutional workers, and other 
specialists creates a further demand for specialized training 
in public welfare work. 

Little has been done to supply this demand. A few col- 
ored students have been graduated from such schools as 
the New York School of Social Work and the Chicago School 
of Social Administration, but there is need for a still greater 
specialization on colored problems than these institutions 
offer. Good beginnings toward this specialization have 
been made in Nashville in connection with Fisk University, 
and in Atlanta, in connection with the colleges and social 
welfare institutions of that city. The requisites of this 
training are that both academic work in social sciences 
and practical observational work in connection with well- 
established welfare organizations should be offered. Both 
of these Southern schools for training colored social workers 
need to be greatly strengthened in order that workers with 
the proper standards may be supplied to the growing num- 
ber of welfare organizations which are showing a willing- 
ness to specialize on colored problems. Colored colleges 
also need to impress the importance of this work on their 
students so that more of them will take it up as a life 
profession. 


208 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


The development of high standards in colored welfare 
institutions will, of necessity, depend largely upon the 
extension of the recent movement to develop strong state 
departments of public welfare in the Southern states. 
North Carolina and Georgia have made substantial prog- 
ress in this line and there are beginnings in the other states 
which give great promise of development. The aid and 
supervision which strong, well-financed state departments 
can give to local communities in handling their problems 
of dependency and delinquency is invaluable. Each state 
department, in states which have a heavy Negro popula- 
tion, should have a specialist in Negro welfare work to 
study the special problems of that group and stimulate 
their special activities. 


COMMUNITY CHESTS 


Probably the most concrete recent movement for stimu- 
lating the colored people to greater interest in their own un- 
fortunate classes and for providing an opportunity for white 
and colored people to codperate unselfishly in humani- 
tarian endeavor has been the community-chest movement, 
which is spreading rapidly in the South. These community 
funds usually include at least two agencies which have 
a program of welfare work for colored people, — the 
Associated Charities, and the Tuberculosis Association. 
Often there is also a colored branch of the Y.M.C.A. or 
Y.W.C.A. and sometimes a special colored institution, such 
as the Urban League, or orphanage, or an old people’s 
home. 

Without the community chest, the financial support of 
these colored programs has been extremely precarious and 


THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 209 


their work has been accordingly hampered. But in the 
community chest their financial support is assured and they 
are able to do far better work. 

In subscribing funds to these chest campaigns, the Ne- 
groes have shown a real eagerness to respond when special 
effort has been made to secure subscriptions from them. 
Their contributions as reported by various chests range 
from 4o to 95 per cent of the budgets of their institutions. 
They usually pay their pledges promptly. The experience of 
the Atlanta Community Chest, to which the colored people 
subscribed 95 per cent of their budget, is worthy of note. 
This campaign included the Associated Charities, two colored 
workers; Tuberculosis Association, one colored worker; 
Travelers Aid, one colored worker ; Phyllis Wheatly Branch, 
Y.W.C.A.; Urban League; Neighborhood Union; and 
two colored orphanages. Their combined budgets were 
about $40,000 and the colored people subscribed over 
$39,000. One colored man alone subscribed $1200, while 
the employees of one large colored corporation subscribed 
more than $8000. At no previous time had the colored sub- 
scriptions to these institutions amounted to over $15,000 
annually. 

In this campaign a special colored committee was or- 
ganized to explain the work of these welfare organiza- 
tions to their group and solicit subscriptions from them, 
and the ministers extended their fullest codperation. The 
results were not only greatly encouraging to the colored 
people, who felt that they were carrying their share of the 
burden and were accorded a fair representation in the 
councils, but their daily reports to the white campaigners 
also furnished a fine stimulus to the general campaign, as 


210 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


they demonstrated that the colored population was stretch- 
ing its thin pocketbook to meet the humanitarian needs of 
the city. 

The organization of the chest was also of great value to 
race relations because, for the first time, it spread the knowl- 
edge of social welfare work widely among the masses of 
colored people and united them behind their welfare in- 
stitutions more solidly than ever before. It also brought 
to the attention of the white leaders the needs of the col- 
ored community to such an extent that the colored work 
is now a definite part of the welfare program of the city. 
The by-product of such codperation is a spirit of good will, 
mutual understanding, and mutual respect which could 
hardly be secured except through such mutual, unselfish 
service to the community. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Census of Benevolent Institutions. 

Census of the Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915, 
Chapter XVII. 

McCorp, C. H. The American Negro as a Dependent, Defective, and 
Delinquent. 

Reports of State Departments of Welfare and Health. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. What would be the effect on problems of poverty, depend- 
ency, insanity, and delinquency of more thorough-going effort to 
perform the tasks of education, public health, recreation, and 
economic justice? 

2. What institutions or organizations in your community 
handle cases of Negro relief? Are their efforts directed at re- 
habilitation of families or merely at giving temporary relief in 
the form of charity doles? 


THE HUMANITARIAN INTERESTS 211 


8. Study the records of a family agency and determine the 
factors which contribute to Negro dependency. 


4, By inquiring among Negro preachers and sick and death 
benefit societies determine the extent and manner in which the 
Negro population of a community takes care of its own un- 
fortunates. 


5. What is the relation of the problems of the day nursery, 
the orphanage, and the family relief society? 


6. In what respect would a home-visiting teacher attached 
to the school be able to reach the problems of abnormal families ? 


7. What is the relation of the neglect of poverty and depend- 
ency to crime and delinquency? 


8. Study the treatment of juvenile delinquents in your com- 
munity. Talk with the judge and determine the volume of 
Negro cases. Has he a colored probation officer, paid or 
voluntary? What training has the officer had? Has hea colored 
advisory committee? What is their success in handling cases? 
What institutions are available for temporary detention of boys, 
of girls; for reformation of boys, of girls? Is the program 
designed to prevent delinquency before it occurs or is it de- 
signed merely to correct delinquencies already committed ? 


CHAPTER XI 
RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 


The church is the most powerful institution in Negro life. 

The Negro church is the only social institution of the Negroes 
which started in the African forest and survived slavery; under 
the leadership of priest or medicine man, afterward of the Chris- 
tian pastor, the church preserved in itself the remnants of 
African tribal life and became after emancipation the center 
of Negro social life. So that to-day the Negro population of the 
United States is virtually divided into church congregations 
which are the real units of race life. — Report of the Third 
Atlanta University Conference. 


A larger proportion of Negroes is reached by the church 
than by any institution. In fact, the proportion of member- 
ship among the Negroes is higher than the proportion in 
the white population. The Census of Religious Bodies of 
1916 showed that 4,602,805 Negroes, about 45 per cent 
of the total population, were church members. The white 
church membership was 37,324,049, or about 38 per cent 
of the total population. 

A second source of the power of the church is the strong 
grip of the religious motive on the emotional nature of the 
Negro. Because the emotions of the race are so bound up 
with the religious urge, the church has a great influence 
on all of its members. They attend regularly and will 


212 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 213 


sacrifice to a remarkable extent to contribute to church 
activities. The historical background of the race has also 
made a commanding position for religious expression in 
the life of the individual. The African medicine man had 
a monopoly on sorcery, witchcraft, worship, medicine, and 
advice. ‘Tradition has preserved much of this absorbing 
importance for the church and the preacher. 

The church is also influential in the life of the race on 
account of its power as a social institution. The Negro 
has so few institutions, so few gathering places, that the 
church has become the logical center for community life. 
In fact observers have frequently noted that the successful 
Negro church is as much a community center as a place of 
worship, and the average successful minister is one who 
stimulates a continual round of activities, devoting as much 
time to community work as to preaching the gospel and 
financing the church. 


HIsToRY OF THE NEGRO CHURCH 


Some of the faults as well as some of the strong points 
of these organizations stand out in bolder relief when the 
history of the transition from African tribal customs to 
American institutions is briefly traced. There have been 
four periods in the religious development of the Negro in 
the United States: (1) A period when masters feared to 
have slaves baptized because of the belief that it was 
illegal to hold Christians in slavery. (2) A short period 
when the evangelization of slaves was actively carried on 
and slaves met for worship in separate congregations or 
jointly with their masters. (3) A period when fear of slave 
revolts and uprisings made masters endeavor to check 


214 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


separate gatherings of slaves and consequently conduct 
joint services. (4) The period since the Civil War, when 
the Negro church has developed as a separate institution. 
During all of these stages the development of colored 
churches has been the result of the struggle of the Negro 
soul for religious self-expression, aided on the one hand by 
the missionary spirits of the white denominations, but often 
opposed by the fears and suspicions of those ruled by the 
economic motive. 

For almost a hundred years (1619-1701) the religious 
instruction of Negro slaves was held in check by the un- 
written law that a Christian could not be held as a slave. 
In permitting slaves to be introduced into the colonies, how- 
ever, European sovereigns stipulated that such slaves should 
first have embraced Christianity, but there was little super- 
vision of the slave trade and not much evidence that this 
provision was enforced against the opposition of the planters. 
English colonists were primarily interested in building 
homes in the New World and looked upon the Negro as a 
means to that end rather than as a human being in need 
of religious teaching. The scattering number of records of 
baptized Negroes indicates that a few of the more religious 
planters, even in this period, were scrupulous about the 
religious instruction of their slaves. 

In Maryland, the only Catholic colony, the practice of 
preaching the gospel to white and colored alike began early. 
In the Protestant colonies, on the other hand, the forma- 
tion, in 1701, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
pel in Foreign Parts, marked the beginning of systematic 
efforts to indoctrinate slaves. This was an English so- 
ciety which operated from 1701 up to the time of the 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT ais 


Revolutionary War and then withdrew. As late as 1667 
Virginia passed the following law: 


Baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his 
bondage or freedom, in order that diverse masters freed from 
_ doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Chris- 
tianity. 


In 1670 Locke’s Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina 
included the following article : 


Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, 
and religion ought to alter nothing in any man’s civil estate or 
right, it shall be lawful for slaves as well as others to enter them- 
selves and be of what church or profession any of them shall 
think best, and thereof be as fully members as any freeman. 
But yet no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil 
dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the 
same state and condition he was in before. 


In 1685, the French Code Noir made baptism and religious 
instruction of slaves obligatory. These laws and the agi- 
tation of Cotton Mather, John Eliot, Oglethorpe, Count 
Zinzendorf, and later (1766) of John Wesley, paved the way 
for a rather rapid evangelization of Negroes. The mission- 
aries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
combed the South and reported many conversions of 
Negroes. In some places Negro congregations were formed 
and in others they met with the white people. The Mora- 
vians or United Brethren began early to establish separate. 
missions for Negroes. Their influence was felt in Virginia, 
Carolina, and Georgia. Methodism was introduced in 
New York in 1766 and the first missionaries sent out by 
Wesley in 1769. From the very beginning they preached 


216 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


to both white and black and the denomination rapidly 
secured a colored membership. In 1800 they began to 
advocate the policy of appointing colored preachers for 
colored congregations, and Richard Allen, later founder 
of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first 
appointed. The Baptists did not really get well started 
in the Southern states until about 1790, but at this time 
great revivals were held and many Negroes enrolled. It is 
reported that : 


In general the Negroes were followers of the Baptists in 
Virginia, and after a while, as they permitted many colored men 
to preach, the great majority of them went to hear preachers 
of their own color, which was attended with many evils. — 
Atlanta University Publication No. 8, p. 18. 


This policy was largely responsible for the rapid growth 
of the colored Baptist congregations, whose membership 
in 1793 was estimated to be one-fourth of the total member- 
ship in the denomination, or about 18,000. The same 
year the Methodists reported 16,227 colored members. 
Thus at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Meth- 
odists and Baptists had large colored memberships, each 
approaching twenty thousand. There was only a sprinkling 
of Presbyterians and Episcopalians. 

At this time, however, forces of unrest began to work 
in the slave population. The same unrest which caused 
Toussaint L’Ouverture to lead the Haitians in revolt against 
their French masters spread to the United States and some- 
thing of the spirit of liberty which flamed in the Colonial 
revolution found its way into Negro minds. Religious 
gatherings formed excellent places to talk these things over 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 217 


and they became marked as the centers of unrest. In 1800 
South Carolina declared : 


It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves, free Negroes, 
mulattoes, or mestizos, even in company with white persons, 
to meet together and assemble for the purpose of mental in- 
struction or religious worship, either before the rising of the sun 
or after the going down of the same. 


Later this was amended to allow a minority of Negroes 
to remain in meeting with white people. A similar act 
was passed in Virginia, but masters were allowed to employ 
religious teachers for their slaves. 

The Denmark Vesey plot in Charleston in 1822 and the 
Nat Turner revolt in Virginia in 1831 illustrate, however, 
that these restrictions were not rigidly enforced and that 
agitators still found black congregations upon whose minds 
they could work. These plots and the economic revolution 
by which the cotton industry became so dominant led to 
a wave of restrictive legislation. 


Virginia declared, in 1831, that neither slaves nor free Negroes 
might preach, nor could they attend religious services at night 
without permission. In North Carolina slaves and free Negroes 
were forbidden to preach, exhort, or teach. Maryland and 
Georgia had similar laws. The Mississippi law of 1831 said: 
“Tt is unlawful for any slave, free Negro, or mulatto to preach 
the gospel.” In Alabama the law of 1832 prohibited the assem- 
bling of more than five male slaves off the plantation to which 
they belonged, but the act was not to be considered as forbidding 
attendance at places of public worship held by white persons. , 


This left the religious worship of Negroes entirely to 
their masters. Many were included in white congregations 


218 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


and all the ante-bellum churches of the South have gal- 
leries in which the slaves sat. But only the favored few 
could obtain seats in these galleries and the masses of field 
hands were dependent upon the occasional visit of the 
itinerant preacher, or the family and plantation services 
held by devout masters and mistresses. 

The Negro church membership increased from about 
50,000 in 1800 to 468,000 in 1859. This increase of goo per 
cent in sixty years indicated that, on the whole, the forces 
favoring the evangelization of Negroes were much stronger 
than the oppressive forces. In fact the oppression came 
more in waves impelled by fear and the forces of evangeli- 
zation operated constantly. 

Even before emancipation, friction in mixed congrega- 
tions led to separate worship in many places. The colored 
people either used the same church edifice at different hours, 
or a separate edifice was erected for them. Nevertheless, 
they remained in the same church organization and some 
of the ablest white preachers of the time filled their pulpits 
and some of the ablest laymen taught their Sunday 
schools. Men of the type of Stonewall Jackson and Robert 
E. Lee held Sunday schools for colored people each Sunday 
and put their whole heart into this work of instruction. 


PRINCIPAL DENOMINATIONS 


The real tragedy of reconstruction was that these con- 
tacts were broken, and the colored church left to work out 
its own salvation in separate organizations. The African 
Methodist Episcopal Church was founded as a separate 
organization by Richard Allen even before the war, but 
its activities were almost entirely confined to the North. 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 219 


After emancipation it spread south. From the galleries 
of the Southern Methodist Church the Colored Metho- 
dist Episcopal denomination grew. Later the African 
Methodist Episcopal Zion was added. Though in separate 
congregations the Baptists remained in the same conven- 
tions for some time, but the increasing pressure for self- 
determination on the part of the colored Baptists finally 
led to the organization of the National Baptist Con- 
vention. All the regular Baptist colored churches are now 
in separate denominational organizations. 

The Baptist and the Methodist bodies include prac- 
tically the whole colored population. Of the 4,600,000 
church members 2,967,000 are in colored Baptist organiza- 
tions and 54,000 are in colored congregations included in 
white Baptist organizations. Colored Methodist organi- 
zations embrace 1,068,000 and the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has enrolled 320,000 in separate colored congrega- 
tions. The Protestant Episcopal Church has never divided 
into white and colored wings. Though its colored member- 
ship is small, the colored congregations belong to the same 
synods as the white congregations and some colored suf- 
fragan bishops are appointed by the church. Similarly, the 
Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian congregations, with 
the exception of some colored Cumberland Presbyterians, 
are included in the white organizations. 

Although much valuable contact with the white race 
was lost by the organization of these separate colored de- 
nominations, this was in part compensated for by the fact 
that the Negro has gained in experience by having these 
great religious institutions as a training ground in organiza- 
tion and administration. 


220 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


EMOTIONAL SERVICES 


There are to be found to-day among the city churches 
many orderly and well-administered congregations. Many 
of the country churches and some of the town congregations, 
on the other hand, have assumed many crudities. 

A Negro investigator in a Northern city found three 
types of churches “‘whose services can be described by no 
better terms than religious hysteria.” These are (1) con- 
gregations which are members of standard denominations, 
but which have wandered afield in their conduct of serv- 
ices; (2) special denominations, such as ‘‘Church of God” 
and “Saints of Christ’”’; and (3) congregations and organ- 
izations built up around individual preachers or leaders 
who split off from other churches. In these he found much 
hysteria. The services were characterized by singing, 
moaning, and shouting, shaking of the body, jumping, and 
rolling on the floor. This type of congregation is slowly giv- 
ing ground before the advance of better trained preachers 
and the development of better self-control. 


FACTIONALISM 


One of the handicaps which has seriously hampered the 
development of the colored church has been the tendency 
of congregations to split and form two weak churches where 
one was adequate. Factional rows are chiefly responsible 
for these splits. This has given the colored people the 
burden of too many organizations. In fact they are over- 
churched. The census of 1916 gives 39,655 Negro organi- 
zations. On the basis of the 1920 population this is a 
church for every 262 people. Their average membership 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 221 


was 116 as against 190 for the white churches. There are 
not nearly enough trained ministers to fill so many pulpits 
and those now in the pulpit are handicapped by the limited 
finances and uncertain support of such small congregations. 
The congregations, in turn, are handicapped by the poorer 
quality of preaching and inadequacy of the church edifices. 
Negro churches showed in 1916 a combined valuation of 
property amounting to $86,809,970, or an average value of 
$2189 per church. It is obvious that this sum will not 
adequately house a congregation. 

There is some evidence, however, that this tendency to 
split has not operated so strongly in recent years as it did 
formerly. From 1906 to 1916 the membership in colored 
churches increased 24.7 per cent, but the number of or- 
ganizations increased only 7.8 per cent. This would seem 
to indicate that the later tendency is toward the consoli- 
dation and strengthening of existing organizations rather 
than the formation of new ones. This tendency is one to be 
encouraged in every way possible, for the church has lost 
much ground through its divisions and dissensions. 


RELATION TO THE COMMUNITY 


The emotional character of the worship in some churches 
has been touched upon. The other outstanding charac- 
teristic of the colored church is the extent to which it is 
the center of the life of the people. At the close of the Civil 
War it was the one institution, and the minister was the 
one leader of the people. It therefore early became the 
agent not only for Sunday worship, but also for Bible 
classes, debating clubs, and social functions. The preacher 
was an adviser on temporal as well as spiritual matters. 


222 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Lodges sprang up from church congregations. Benefit 
societies and labor bureaus were among the activities fos- 
tered and, more recently, the church has entered the field 
of social welfare by adding institutional features. 

No one is properly introduced to the colored community 
unless his introduction comes through the church and 
no movement can hope for wide success among the masses 
of the people which does not use the influence of the minis- 
ter as its greatest asset. This has made even a more useful 
field for the colored institutional church than for similar 
white institutions. A few of the city churches have begun 
to develop along these lines. The Congregational Church 
of Atlanta numbers among its activities a working girls’ 
home, an old folks’ home, and numbers of young people’s 
clubs. Big Bethel A.M.E. Church of the same city has 
for years operated a labor exchange and codperated with 
the relief agencies of the city. The Atlanta Mutual Life 
Insurance Company grew from a benefit society formed 
in Wheat Street Baptist Church and this church engages 
its members in many other activities. In Jacksonville, 
Memphis, Richmond, and numbers of other cities, forward- 
looking ministers are developing institutions of real service 
and rooting their church deep in the life of their race. 

This line of community service is one which should 
especially interest the country church. As yet, however, 
little progress toward institutional service has been made 
in rural districts. Churches have multiplied so fast that 
they have been unable to secure trained pastors, and have 
subdivided into such small congregations that they cannot 
afford to pay a man for full-time work. Consequently 
many preachers serve two, three, and four churches. This 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 223 


means that they are non-resident pastors, coming into 
the community on Saturday or Sunday morning and 
leaving Monday. They leave behind a group of untrained 
church officers who are unable to make the community 
activities of the church what they should be. Practically 
all the money collected in such churches goes to pay the 
preacher, and little remains for rendering service to the 
congregation. After surveying the rural church in Macon 
County, Alabama, where there are many absentee pastors, 
Rev. G. Lake Imes of Tuskegee concludes : 


Little or no time is given to pastoral visitation. Scant atten- 
tion is given to the school. No service is rendered in the week- 
day interests of the people, and this is the result: that while 
the people of this community contribute nearly four times as 
much to religion as they do to education, they receive in the 
time of the pastor, and the upkeep of the church, only one-sixth 
as much in return as they receive from the schools. In short, 
the church and the preacher are in grave danger of becoming 
mere parasites in the life of our people. 


-It is therefore evident that where there is a resident 
preacher the church is a most powerful institution in the 
colored community, but where denominational or factional 
splits have so overchurched a community that the small 
congregations cannot support resident pastors, much work 
is needed to harness the potential influence of the church 
on community life. The remedies lie in the consolidation 
and strengthening of present congregations to the point 
where more of the pastor’s time can be demanded, in more 
frequent use of rural church buildings as social centers, 
in systematic efforts to give more training to the local church 
officials, — the deacons and elders, and in more interest 


224 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


in utilizing the church as a means of community uplift 
during the whole month rather than every other or every 
fourth Sunday. 

SUNDAY SCHOOLS 

One natural result of the interest of the church in tem- 
poral matters has been the adoption of an educational 
policy by practically every denomination. This educational 
policy embraces not only the Sunday school, but also con- 
tributions to the support of denominational schools. 

Colored Sunday schools may be characterized by the 
statement that, as a rule, they are well attended, but, out- 
side of the larger city churches, they are poorly organized. 
Too many ministers look upon their Sunday school as a 
useless adjunct which deflects attention from their regular 
service, instead of realizing in it a source of vital power from 
which the church can draw young members. 

The features of the Sunday school which need strength- 
ening are those of organization and administration. 
Better grading of the scholars, a clearer understanding 
by the teachers of their tasks, better equipment, and better 
administrative programs, are points where marked improve- 
ment could be made with a little intelligent effort and a 
small expenditure of funds. 

As yet the large colored denominations, the African 
Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal 
Zion, and the Baptist, have not begun to approach this 
task systematically, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal 
Church has just made a small beginning. What is needed is 
field work, — visitation and instruction by trained workers 
who can go into the church community, discover the leaders, 
and arouse them to the task of reaching young people. 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 225 


In some states the white Baptists with some financial 
aid from the colored Baptists have supported colored 
Sunday school organizers who, for a while, rendered valu- 
able service. For the most part, however, these workers 
have been discontinued for the lack of funds. If the col- 
ored Baptists were fully alive to the magnitude of this 
need, they are fully able, without the aid of the white 
denomination, to support such workers with the proceeds 
of one annual Sunday school collection from each church. 

The work of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
is to be especially commended in this line. While this 
denomination embraces only about 30,000 colored members, 
they have 27 full-time Sunday school workers in the field 
whose mission is threefold. They go out and discover 
neglected communities in which there is no Sunday school 
and organize one. They visit homes and give the people 
Bibles and literature, and instruct them in family prayer. 
They visit schools already organized and help them with 
their problems of grading, teaching, and equipment. They 
maintain in Atlanta a well-organized publication bureau 
for the distribution of literature and information to these 
field workers, and once a year they hold four Sunday school 
institutes. 

SECULAR EDUCATION 

Many adult Negroes in the early days first learned to 
read in the Sunday school. It was but a short step from 
this kind of Sunday school to a parochial school, where the 
simple elementary subjects were taught by the preacher 
or by a hired teacher. The consolidation of these parochial 
schools has given each denomination something of a system 
of education. 


226 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


The African Methodist Episcopal Church supports a 
school in each Southern state and, in Morris Brown Uni- 
versity, this denomination has a college of increasing size 
and rising standards. In codperation with the Southern 
Methodist (white) the Colored Methodist Episcopal 
Church has g schools. The Methodist Episcopal Church, 
which includes the white Methodists in the North and quite 
a large colored membership in the South, has 18 large schools. 
The Presbyterian denomination (Presbyterian Church in 
the U. S. A.) maintains 85 schools, most of which are small, 
but several of which are important. The Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, which is also one of mixed membership, main- 
tains 10 large and 14 small schools. The Congregational 
board supports 29 schools, all of which are important. 

The Baptists have suffered greatly through the decen- 
tralization of their educational work. In other words, their 
parochial schools have not consolidated to any great 
extent beyond the local association. These associations 
embrace only a few counties each and are not financially 
able to support a large school. This has given the colored 
Baptists 110 schools, only 31 of which could be classed as 
of any importance other than that of supplementing the 
local public schools. In codperation with the American 
Baptist Home Mission Society (white), however, the Col- 
ored Baptists contribute to 24 large schools, some of which 
are among the most important in the country for training 
colored leaders. 

The combined incomes of the schools of denominations 
with all colored membership was, in 1916, $381,000, while 
the combined income of the schools supported by denom- 
inations of mixed white and colored membership was 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 227 


$1,550,000. Thus the church is making a real and increas- 
ingly important contribution to the training of colored 


leadership. 
MORALITY AND THRIFT 


While the church has been of great service to the race 
in reaching large numbers with an evangelical message 
and in serving the people as a many-functioned institution, 
it has not fully measured up to its opportunities of incul- 
cating greater thrift and morality in its members. This 
should be interpreted, not so much as a detraction from 
the great part which the church has played in building 
Negro character as a challenge to go ahead with a task 
well begun. Were it not for the colored church, Negro 
home and family life would be nowhere near as moral as 
it is to-day, yet there is much room for improvement. 

One of the greatest gaps which had to be bridged be- 
tween Africa and America was in the life of the home and 
the family. The African system was one of polygamous 
clans. The slave was uprooted from an existence ordered 
under this plan and placed upon a plantation where monog- 
amy was theoretically demanded but in many cases not 
really expected. This, according to the Atlanta University 
Study of the Negro Church, practically amounted to a 
new polygamy with all of the evils and none of the benefits 
of the African system. 


The African system was a complete protection for girls, and 
a strong protection for wives against everything but the tyranny 
of the husband; the plantation polygamy left the chastity of 
Negro women absolutely unprotected in law, and practically 
little guarded in custom. The number of wives of a West 
Indian slave was limited chiefly by his lust and cunning. The 


228 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


black females, were they wives or growing girls, were the 
legitimate prey of the men, and on this system there was one 
and only one safeguard, the character of the master of the 
plantation. 


Since emancipation, the white man’s law and the black 
man’s church have been the only safeguards of family 
morality and of the two the church has been more potent 
than the law. It has not, however, measured up to this 
responsibility as fully as it could have if the ministers had 
addressed themselves whole-heartedly to this task from the 
beginning, and had their services contained less of evan- 
gelical fire and theological dogma and more lessons of thrift 
and morality. In other words, there is a great need, which 
is slowly being met, that the Negro church be more inti- 
mately related to the lives of its individual members in 
its preaching as it is in its institutional features. 

As in the white population, this tendency to overempha- 
size evangelism and the resultant failure to relate the teach- 
ings of the pulpit intimately to life has begun to estrange 
the younger generation from the church. They do not 
attend as regularly as their parents. Should this tendency 
operate unchecked for several generations the colored 
church would be in danger of losing its preéminent place 
in the life of the race. 


PREACHERS 


The multiple activities of colored ministers call for a 
training above the average and yet the training facilities 
are wholly inadequate to meet this great demand. As has 
been noted there are almost 40,000 Negro churches and 
only about 19,000 ministers. This means that fully 25,000 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 229 


Negro churches are without the services of a full-time min- 
ister, and have services only twice a month or once a month, 
according to the number of other pulpits filled by their 
minister. The numerical problem of securing a sufficient 
force to supply these half-filled pulpits is, in itself, a great 
one. At the time of the Bureau of Education Survey of 
Negro Schools (1916) the combined output of all colored 
theological schools did not aggregate 200 per year. It is 
not at all uncommon to find pulpits filled by men who 
during the week are teachers or tradesmen. But until the 
weaker colored churches are better organized and more 
securely financed, there is not much need for a greater 
number of preachers, because, if they were available these 
weaker congregations could not now support a full-time 
pastor. The problem is rather one of increasing the train- 
ing and efficiency of the ministers now in the pulpit with 
the assurance of a fairly steady and adequate annual crop 
of young men to enter the profession. 

From county studies we may picture the average rural 
colored preacher thus: He is a man who can read and write, 
usually a man of considerable native intelligence and 
oratorical ability, but a man with meager elementary 
education (only about 1 per cent have had any theological 
training and from 3 to 5 per cent have had high school 
training). He is handicapped by small, shifting, and 
poorly organized congregations. For his labors he receives 
from $150 to $500 per year and consequently has to 
supplement this by farming or operating a small busi- 
ness. In fully go per cent of the cases he serves more than 
one church. This means that he stands in the relation of 
non-resident pastor to at least one of his congregations and 


230 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


sees them only on the day when he preaches, leaving them 
without ministerial services for the rest of the month or 
two weeks between his sermons. 

One of the criticisms frequently lodged against colored 
ministers and congregations is that the financial manage- 
ment of the smaller churches is lax. This condition arises 
partly from the failure of the untrained minister to keep 
adequate accounts and provide for annual audits, and 
partly from the failure of the congregations themselves 
through their officers, to pay their assessments promptly 
and fulfill their obligations in business-like manner. Many 
colored preachers have to waste much time and energy 
at the end of each year in holding “‘rallies” to collect salary 
which should have been paid them regularly through the year. 


CHURCH COOPERATION 


In planning these details of church management the 
white ministers and church officers could render valuable 
advisory service if they were called in to discuss problems 
with the colored minister. In the past much more of this 
friendly advice was given than now, but there are still 
many white men who would be pleased to render such 
service if asked to do so. 

The controversies over slavery and the bitterness of the 
Civil War estranged white from colored congregations, 
and separated Northern from Southern congregations with- 
in three great denominations. Opinion was divided to such 
a point that organized Christianity in the United States 
has no unified policy toward the colored race even though 
the love of Christ for all races, nations, and classes of 
mankind, is woven all through the New Testament. 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 231 


The doctrine, ““Go ye into all the world,” has been 
interpreted by Southern denominations as a command 
to go into foreign fields, and they have spent many mil- 
lions of dollars for foreign missions as against very small 
amounts for the great home mission work among the Ne- 
groes at their door. In the words of a Southern man, 
W. D. Weatherford: 


Here at our very door is one of the greatest and most fertile 
mission fields the world knows. . . . What princely givers we 
have been! The Presbyterians last year gave an average of three 
postage stamps per member to this work. The Methodists 
averaged less than the price of a cheap soda water — just a 
five cent one. The Southern Baptist Convention has only been 
asking from its large membership $15,000 annually, or less than 
one cent per member for this tremendous work. 


The general boards of white denominations can render 
great service to the colored church along several lines. 
One of the most important is assistance in strengthening 
the facilities for training colored ministers. Each colored 
denomination should be aided by its affiliated white 
denomination to develop its preacher-training facilities. 
There is also a big opportunity to train preachers now on 
the job through summer institutes. The Southern Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church conducts several of these institutes 
for Colored Methodist Episcopal pastors and the results 
have been excellent. Such institutes are held in connection 
with several schools, but this movement is so recent that 
very few of the active ministers have yet been reached. 

The second great field of service of the white boards 
to the colored boards is in assistance with the Sunday 
school program. Some description has been given of the aid 


232 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


extended by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. through 
field Sunday school organizers. A little financial assistance 
and some codperation in working out literature and institute 
plans would prove a great stimulus to the colored church 
boards in extending their Sunday school work. 

In local communities many mutual problems could be 
profitably discussed in joint ministers’ meetings. The plan 
of organizing white and colored ministerial unions which 
meet separately three times and jointly once a month is 
gaining in favor. The Atlanta Christian Council is modeled 
on this plan and many useful codperative projects have 
been fathered by this body and mutual aid on these proj- 
ects has, in turn, contributed to a better feeling between 
the races. 

Local churches also have a fine opportunity for home 
mission activity in developing colored mission Sunday 
schools in neglected settlements. A pioneer in this line 
was the Rev. John Little of Louisville, Ky., whose Sunday 
school is supported and taught by members of a large white 
Presbyterian congregation. This work has expanded until 
the school is now active all week. The Bible is taught on 
Sundays, and industries on week days. The effect of this 
industrial training and of neighborhood clubs centering in 
the school has made its influence felt throughout one of 
the neediest sections of the city. 

The Federal Council of Churches has taken a signifi- 
cant step in the formation of a commission on race relations 
composed of churchmen of both races and many denom- 
inations. This commission is beginning to codrdinate the 
interracial activities among the churches and promote con- 
structive local codperation especially among the Federated 


RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 233 


Church Councils in Northern cities. They have rendered 
valuable service in the campaign against lynching; they 
have promoted the observance of race relations Sunday; 
they maintain a useful information service and are stimu- 
lating study projects. 

It would be difficult to conceive of a more fruitful field 
for the application of practical Christian principles, for 
translating the social treachings of Jesus into actual life, 
than the field of race relations. The young church mem- 
bers of each race need to realize this thoroughly and build 
the church organizations of the future generation on the 
basis of mutual helpfulness and unity of spirit. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Atlanta University Publications No. 8. 

BRAWLEY, BENJAMIN. A Short History of the American Negro, 
Chapter XI. 

Haynes, G. E. The Trend of the Races. 

The Atlanta Plan of Interracial Codperation. 

United States Census — Religious Bodies, 1916. 

WEATHERFORD, W. D. Present Forces in Negro Progress, Chapter VI. 

Woopson, CarTER G. History of the Negro Church, pp. 286-296. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. Discuss the Negro Church as the center of Negro social 
life. 

2. What has been the training of the Negro preachers of your 
community ? 


3. What efforts do white denominations in your state make 
to aid Negro denominations or congregations: (zx) in training 
preachers; (2) in Sunday school organization and supervision ; 
(3) in evangelical activities; (4) in social service? 


234 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


4. What local organizations promote codperation between 
white and colored churches? 

5. How many Negro churches in your community are the 
result of splits In one congregation? Get in touch with the 
leaders in such a church and get the facts behind the split. 
Study these facts and see if they indicate any significant con- 
clusion. What effect has the split had on church finances and 
leadership ? 

6. Is there any relation between illiteracy and the emotional 
type of church service? 

7. How do you account for the fact that Baptists and Metho- 
dists are so predominant among the Negroes? 


CHAPTER XII 
RACE CONTACTS 


A consideration of the elements of race adjustment out- 
lined in the preceding chapters will reveal that where the 
races come together for educational effort, for health im- 
provement, for moral advance, or for humanitarian ends, 
the community as a whole benefits and the mutual respect 
of the two races increases. It is impossible to work consist- 
ently with a man and hate him. On the other hand, the 
contacts of the vicious and criminal element, contacts which 
lead to amalgamation of races, or those that are even sym- 
bols of social intermixture, contacts of violence and exploita- 
tive economic contacts, make for race antagonism. In other 
words, both the relationships which make for progress and 
those which make for friction may be expressed in terms of 
contacts. Contacts may therefore be classified as follows: 
Helpful — health improvement, educational effort, moral 
advance, safeguarding law, religious, civic improvement, 
humanitarian effort, economic codperation; Harmful — 
vice and crime, social intermingling, violence, economic 
exploitation and unfair competition, and demagogic or 
exploitative political contacts. 

If the races are to live at peace and make progress in the 
United States, the simplest formula which can be given to 
them is that the helpful contacts should be increased and 
strengthened by every possible device, and that each indi- 

235 


236 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


vidual of both races seek the means of cultivating these 
contacts; that the harmful contacts be safeguarded and 
discontinued wherever possible, and that individuals of 
each race set their faces against such contacts. 

A fine recent utterance of this principle was voiced in the 
inaugural address of Governor Whitfield of Mississippi : 


Wise leaders among the Negroes must be encouraged in their 
splendid efforts to aid their own people. Points of agreement 
between the races must be emphasized and points of friction 
minimized. Every man and woman in the state must see to it 
that the laws protecting the Negroes in their lives and property 
are rigorously enforced; that the occasional white man who seeks 
to profit through the ignorance of his tenants or laborers be 
forced by the overwhelming weight of an aroused public opinion 
to give a square deal to all whom he employs, regardless of race 
or color, and that there be the fullest codperation between the 
white man and the black, to the end that peace and prosperity 
come to the white and black alike through cordial codperation 
in the agricultural and industrial upbuilding of the state. 


SEGREGATION 


Where the races have lived side by side for some time, 
each type of contact has created a code of meeting, —a 
contact behavior which has become customary and under- 
stood by both races. As is usual with customs and folkways, 
these codes are often difficult to rationalize. For instance, 
even where “‘Jim Crow” laws are most stringent against 
the mixing of the races in railway coaches, it is not at all 
unusual to see a colored nurse riding with a white mother 
and child. In fact such a situation is specifically exempted 
from most of the separate coach statutes. It is understood. 
The explanation is that the nurse’s presence is In no way 


RACE CONTACTS 237 


a symbol of social intermingling. Again, the two races in 
the South are to be found working side by side on the 
same building as carpenters or masons. Here also the 
relationship is well understood. The men codperate in work, 
laugh and joke amicably together, but it is perfectly under- 
stood that neither will invite the other home to dinner or 
extend their personal relationships beyond a certain inde- 
finable line. An interesting illustration of this economic 
relationship is shown in the story of the Englishman who 
ran out of money in South Africa and consented to work for 
a native contractor on condition that the native call him 
“boss.” 

The unanalytical are inclined to dismiss such behavior 
phenomena as the result of illogical prejudice, but illogical 
though they may be, they arise from roots far deeper than 
prejudice. Primarily they may be explained by the funda- 
mental sociological principle of consciousness of kind, of 
pleasurable association with similars. The ‘‘we-group” 
always sets up protective taboos and restrictions against 
intermarriage and to some extent against intermingling 
with the ‘‘other-than-we-group,” especially if there is a wide 
ethnic difference between the two. 

When the undesirability of racial amalgamation is 
admitted, either from a biological or a social standpoint, 
then the necessity for certain forms of separation which tend 
to miminize social contacts is apparent. They are the 
results of the effort to create a code under which it is pos- 
sible to be “‘brothers in Christ without becoming brothers- 
in-law.” 

A second tendency toward the separation of racial activi- 
ties results from the tendency to specialization. Whenever 


238 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


an organization is designed to serve the Negro’s special 
needs or develop his special capabilities, there is a tendency 
for a separate colored organization or a colored branch of 
an existing organization to be formed. The most notable 
example of the specialization of service is seen in the volun- 
tary formation of large Negro congregations within white 
denominations and the formation of large separate colored 
denominations. The peculiarly religious nature of the Ne- 
gro and his desire for a special type of worship and of 
religious leadership has exerted a pressure which has led 
him to specialize his own religious activity. It was also 
noted in an earlier chapter that Negro unionists often prefer 
a separate local union, which can not only specialize on their 
particular problems, but also codperate with the white 
organization in district councils. The increasing number of 
colored doctors and their special need for hospital training 
is exerting a pressure for the development of separate 
colored hospitals. These types of specialization are obvi- 
ously very different social phenomena from the arbitrary 
separation along social lines, and the two should not be 
confused. 

There are forms of segregation which are cruel and others 
which are useless. Too often the separation of the Negro 
simply affords an opportunity to give him inadequate 
accommodations for the same pay, and does not help in 
preserving race purity. The majority of Negroes oppose 
separate railway coaches not because of an inherent desire 
to ride with white people, but because most railroads herd 
them into half coaches which are part colored passenger 
coach and part baggage car. Often there is only one toilet 
for both sexes, and sometimes the conductor, brakeman, or 


RACE CONTACTS 239 


“news butcher,’’ makes his headquarters in the colored 
compartment, forcing colored passengers to stand. Some- 
times they are furnished wooden coaches which are dan- 
gerously sandwiched between the heavy steel coaches. 
Likewise the Negro does not move out into a white residence 
neighborhood because of the desire to live with white people, 
but because of the desire to escape the noxious surroundings 
commonly found in Negro settlements —lack of police pro- 
tection, dismal lighting, filthy streets, and cramped quarters. 
In other words, all that most Negroes see in separation is 
that it is a means to degrade and an opportunity to ex- 
ploit them. So long asit presents this aspect to them, it will 
be galling and insulting, and they will oppose it. Stated 
positively, this means that in the final analysis if segrega- 
tion is to be successfully maintained, it must not be confused 
with discrimination and must finally be approved by the 
colored people themselves as beneficial to race relations. 

The administration of segregation regulations by minor 
functionaries, who are often prejudiced and brutal toward 
the weaker race, is an additional source of irritation to the 
Negro. It has been the author’s observation that the at- 
titude of colored people toward separation in street cars 
in certain towns has been radically altered by efforts of 
the company to secure uniform courtesy and consideration 
on the part of its conductors. In the hands of ignorant 
and prejudiced employees segregation can be made a smart- 
ing insult. 

There was one railroad station from which colored people 
were permitted to embark by one gate but into which they 
were compelled to return by another gate. In the absence 
of any sign directing them there was constant confusion. Of 


240 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


course a man could not be supposed to know by instinct that 
he was permitted to depart along with white people through 
a certain gate but not to come back with them through the 
same gate. To make matters worse the gate-keepers were 
uniformly gruff and domineering and the resultant effect of 
this arrangement was to embitter the whole colored popu- 
lace of the surrounding territory. One day the gate-keeper 
roughly seized a man who was innocently trying to depart 
through the same gate through which he entered. When the 
man in his surprise jerked violently away, only the quick 
action of some cool heads prevented a near riot. In their 
own councils Negroes discuss and often magnify these things 
until they loom large in their race consciousness. As Dr. 
R. R. Moton expresses it, such petty, nagging restrictions 
are ‘‘gravels in the Negro’s shoe, small in size but capable of 
inflicting great discomfort and impeding progress.” 

Apart from manifest inequalities in separate accommoda- 
tions and insulting methods of applying segregation, many 
colored citizens seem happier in their own company than 
when the company is mixed. There is also evidence that a 
growing race pride is strengthening the feeling of colored 
people against racial intermixture. But if the white South 
is ever to justify segregation and maintain it on any demo- 
cratic basis, it will be through the provision of accommoda- 
tions which are as nearly equal as possible and through an 
administration which is just and considerate. 

However, unless those forms of separation which are 
meant to safeguard the purity of the races are present, the 
majority of the white people flatly refuse to codperate with 
Negroes. In other words, the preservation of racial integ- 
rity seems to be a fixed policy of the white people, and is 


RACE CONTACTS 241 


becoming a fixed policy of the colored people. The solution 
of this situation would seem to rest in the imposition only 
of such forms of segregation as aid in the preservation of 
racial integrity, and in the administration of the system with 
absolute justice. If, in the long run, the wisdom and justice 
of such a system is not recognized by the Negro himself, 
there will either be constant discontent and friction or 
amalgamation. There is no alternative to these two, except 
the systematic minimization of social contacts. 


PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PRESS 


Any treatment of racial contacts would be incomplete 
without consideration of the indirect contacts which come 
from reading about or talking about each other, and which 
are generally referred to as public opinion. Public opinion is 
often different from the realities of a situation, and especially 
is this true of public opinion concerning race relations. It 
rests in part upon traditional belief and to this extent does 
not allow for change and progress. Current public opinion 
is formed largely by the press and the pulpit, and when these 
sources are poisoned by fear, by demagoguery, or by propa- 
ganda, the opinion which they form is wide of the facts. 

An analysis of the comments on the Negro question in 
white dailies and periodicals reveals an undue emphasis 
upon crime and upon the ridiculous elements, with too 
little of constructive news and editorial policy. The Chi- 
cago Race Commission listed 1338 Negro news items which 
appeared over a period of two years in three principal white 
Chicago dailies. Of these 667, or one half, were concerned 
with riots, clashes, crime, vice, and illegitimate con- 
tacts; 551 were concerned with such impersonal matters 


242 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


as soldiers, politics, housing, sports, and migration; while 
only 58 were on such constructive subjects as education, 
art, business, and miscellaneous meetings. 

The same investigation indicted the press North and 
South as the purveyor of an “inordinately one-sided pic- 
ture.”’ In the sensational headlining of race matters, the 
difference between North and South is only one of degree. 
In support of this the Chicago report quotes the follow- 
ing headlines: 


NEGRO ROBBER ATTACKS WOMAN NEAR HER HOME 
POLICE HUNT FOR NEGRO WHO HELD UP WOMAN 
AUSTIN WOMAN ATTACKED IN HER OWN HOME BY NEGRO 
WOMAN SHOCKED BY NEGRO THIEF 
NEGRO ATTACKS WOMAN 
ARREST NEGRO SUSPECT FIND MUCH IN POCKETS, etc. 


It will be observed that the word ‘‘ Negro” is prominently 
displayed in each case. This, according to colored leaders, 
is no more justified than would be the prominent display of 
‘red headed” in every case where such an individual com- 
mitted a crime. Such a policy foments race hatred and 
constantly holds in front of the white world the worst side 
of the Negro community, without any counterbalancing 
view of the better side. The constant impact of these sensa- 
tional headings upon the public mind can hardly be esti- 
mated. It is a fact that nearly every race riot has been 
preceded by an orgy of newspaper sensationalism of the 
most inflammatory type. 


RACE CONTACTS 243 


Ray Stannard Baker, in his investigations of the Atlanta 
riot, noted the effect of the glaring, sensational headlines 
displayed several days before this outbreak and pointed out 
that some of these sensations later evaporated as mere 
rumors. East St. Louis was prepared for her bloody riot by 
a similar sensational deluge of the public mind. General 
Wood in taking charge after the Omaha riot stated that the 
responsibility for the strained relations there rested upon a 
few individuals and one newspaper. The Chicago report 
gives the following succinct account of the sensation which 
paved the way for the Washington riot: “‘The Washington 
race riot was precipitated by reports of alleged attacks upon 
white women by Negroes. These reports were featured in 
the daily newspapers with large front-page headlines, and 
suggestions were made that probable lynchings would fol- 
low the capture of the Negroes. The series of reported 
assaults totaled seven. In each it was claimed that a Negro 
had assaulted a white woman. When the fury and excite- 
ment of the riot had subsided and the facts were sifted, it 
was found that of the seven assaults reported, four were 
assaults upon colored women. Three of the alleged crim- 
inals arrested and held for assault were white men, and at 
least two of the white men were prosecuted for assaults upon 
colored women. It further developed that three of the 
assaults were supposed to have been committed by a suspect 
who at the time of the riots was under arrest.” 

Although the colored press rants against the white press 
for its unbalanced news and editorial policy, it is, in its way, 
fully as one-sided and as potent in its contribution to racial 
antagonism. According to the Chicago Commission’s study 
of the three Chicago colored papers: ‘‘The news items in 


244 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Negro papers show a bias in reporting the opposite of that 
of many white papers. They emphasize the Negro view, 
frequently to the point of distorting fact. If anything, they 
might be said to provide a compensatory interpretation of 
the news.” 

The painstaking study of Prof. Robert T. Kerlin of Vir- 
ginia Military Institute, published under the title “The 
Voice of the Negro,” contains ample evidence that the Negro 
papers give too much space to the sensational treatment of 
discrimination, grievances, rights, riots, lynchings. Professor 
Kerlin holds that no one can know the mind of the Negro 
without studying their journals, ‘“‘The Negro has discovered 
the power and importance of his own press. It is a rapidly 
expanding influence, consisting even now of two dailies, a 
dozen magazines, and over three hundred weeklies. Init may 
be found the voice of the Negro and his heart and mind.” 

The situation is discouraging to any one interested in 
peace and good will between the races. On one side the 
white press assails the white mind with constant impact 
from the worst phases of Negro life; on the other side the 
Negro press assails the Negro mind with constant impact 
from the worst side of white life. Between the two they have 
fomented much discontent and several riots, and if their 
policy remains unchanged, they will inevitably stir up much 
more discontent and many more riots. The press of both 
races has seemed only too well contented to sacrifice the 
chances for racial peace and progress in order to build a 
profitable circulation by catering to the widespread pleasure 
derived from the sensational story. 

It must be said, however, that much of the damage done 
to race relations by this policy has been unintentional. Very 


RACE CONTACTS 245 


recently white editors have shown a tendency to come to- 
gether and face this issue, and have manifested a willingness 
to change their policies when they have fully realized their 
import. More than fifty editors representing six Southern 
states recently declared; ‘‘It would be well if even greater 
effort was made to publish news of a character which is 
creditable to the Negro, showing his development as a 
people along desirable lines. This would stimulate him to 
try to attain a higher standard of living.”” Such a policy is 
well worthy of the consideration of all press associations. 

Similarly, more effort is being made to get constructive news 
into the Negro papers, not as an effort to suppress the facts 
concerning real grievances and outrages, but in order to 
complete the picture by showing both sides of the question. 


CONCLUSION 


It must always be remembered that the relations between 
white and black are but a part of the race problem in the 
United States. Many students in Texas feel that their 
Mexican problems are more complicated than their Negro 
problems, and the people of the Pacific coast would not 
qualify their statement that the questions raised by the 
presence of Orientals are, to them, ten to one more impor- 
tant than Negro questions. In other sections, where people 
of different nationalities of the white, race are in contact, 
they have their difficulties. The Negro is only one element 
— the largest single element in the “ melting pot.” 

Again it will be helpful for the student to remember that 
the tasks of race relations in the United States are but a 
part of the larger tasks throughout the world. In India 
and Africa, England faces the black and the brown races. 


246 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Belgium and France also have their African tasks, while the 
Orient is a meeting ground for the white and the yellow, and 
the Near East is a hodgepodge of colors and stocks. Some 
of the successful principles of racial adjustment between the 
white and the Negro in the United States may apply to race 
relations in other areas and between other peoples. Cer- 
tainly the fundamental principles of justice and of helpful 
codperation are universal in their application. 

The diffusion of Negroes throughout the United States 
has resulted in a spread and nationalization of racial con- 
tacts. Up to the time of the recent migrations, contacts were 
largely localized in the South and the white people of other 
sections were in the position of bystanders — outsiders 
whose comments were often resented. Now, however, the 
whole nation is vitally concerned with the satisfactory ad- 
justment of race relations and is showing a desire to face 
these tasks in a truly American manner. ra 

Race relations have become more national and less sec- 
tional because, in its expansion, the federal government 
has come into contact with the Negro in new ways. The use 
of Negro troops, aid to the Negro farmer, application of the 
various federal funds appropriated for education and public 
health, relation of the Negro to the labor problems of the 
nation, and the influence of the presence of large numbers of 
Negroes on the immigration policy are all concrete instances 
of the growth, altogether apart from party politics, of a 
national attitude, to replace the old sectional view of race 
contacts. 

A review of the diverse tasks of adjusting race relations 
which have been outlined in the preceding chapters brings 
into bold relief the fact that no one panacea can be applied 


RACE CONTACTS 247 


as a cure-all. No one symptom can be isolated and called 
“The Race Problem.” Problems of race cross-section the 
problems of democracy. In communities where the popula- 
tion is biracial, all community life is complicated by the 
presence of the two races. There are many everyday tasks 
of codperation. This reflects back to the idea with which 
the introduction of this book is concerned ; namely, that the 
adjustment of race relations constitutes far more of a task 
than a problem. There is a substantial’ agreement as to 
what needs to be done for leadership, for health, for educa- 
tion, for law and order, for economic advance, for religious 
improvement, for social welfare. The performance of 
these tasks demands the wisdom, fairness, and diplomacy of 
the thoughtful members of both races. They are above the 
realm of partisan politics and of sectionalism. They involve 
the prosperity of communities, but even to a greater degree 
they control the health and happiness of millions of individ- 
uals. They are human tasks and above all their humani- 
tarian aspects should be emphasized. But the tasks that 
remain involve methods of enabling the organizations now 
dealing with these social problems to function for Negroes 
as well as for white people. 

Human personalities need to be recognized as the para- 
mount issue. Antipathies and jealousies based upon the 
opinion which one race holds of the other en masse need to 
be submerged in the resolve to recognize individual merit 
and individual worth. Thus the keynote of the approach to 
racial adjustment is not that of partisanship, of sectional- 
ism, or of self, but that of service, the type of service which 
is consecrated to the benefit of the maximum number of 
men, women, and children in the community. 


248 THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


DuBois, W. E. B. Darkwater. 

DETWEILER, D. T. The Negro Press. 
KeErLIN, R. T. The Voice of the Negro. 
The Negro in Chicago, Chapters VI and IX. 


TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 


1. Pick some one form of race contact and study the number 
of individuals brought together and the frequency with which 
they are brought together. Study the customs surrounding 
this contact and endeavor to explain them. Does this contact 
make for race friction or for racial adjustment? 


2. Study the places in your community where the races are 
separated by law or by custom. What are the reasons for 


separation in each case? Is the separation humanely or brutally 
enforced? 


8. Study a separate Negro residence district. What effect 
has this separation on streets, police protection, lights, sanita- 
tion? What effect have these things on the Negro’s attitude 
toward segregation? 


4. Assuming that racial amalgamation is undesirable, is some 
form of separation necessary? How much? 


5. Analyze the news and editorials in eight or ten issues of a 
Negro paper and determine the relative space given to different 
types of matter. What is the general effect of this paper on the 
Negro mind? 


6. What contribution has the United States to make toward 
African colonial policies ? 


7. What has our domestic Negro problem to do with our 
international relations with South American countries, Mexico, 
the West Indies, Japan? 


APPENDIX 
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 


“The Basis of Racial Adjustment” is a treatment of the 
significant aspects of the relations of the White and Negro races 
in the United States. For those who would use it as a text, 
bibliographies and discussion topics have been placed at the 
end of each chapter. 

The teacher should study the topics and have on hand such 
material as census reports, reports of funds, and state depart- 
ments and such other documents as can be turned over to the 
student for preparation of discussions. ‘The minimum should be 
The Negro Year Book published by Tuskegee, Negro Popula- 
tion in the United States, 1790-1915 (Census Bureau), and such 
official reports as will be needed for reference by students 
assigned discussion topics. 

If black and white people are to live peaceably and justly, 
they must learn to think in terms of the facts of race relations. 
The teacher’s task is therefore not so much that of getting 
students to follow the printed pages of this book as it is to get 
them to think on the topics covered. For this reason the topics 
have been arranged so as to call for the maximum amount of 
first-hand observation. An hour of such observation, when it is 
properly directed, is worth ten hours of book study. Students 
are brought face to face“with the realities in such a way that 
their own minds work out conclusions rather than accepting 
ready-made dogmas. ‘They discover the facts in a concrete 
situation from which there is no appeal. Their interest is 
vitalized by the study of a real living situation rather than of a 

249 


250 APPENDIX 


printed page. It is urged, therefore, that wherever possible 
teachers use this book merely as a basis for guiding first-hand 
observation of the community. Such a procedure will not only 
quicken the learning process but will yield the most fruitful 
results in translating this learning into the practical application 
of morality and democracy to interracial affairs. 

To get the best results from this kind of study, topics for dis- 
cussion should be assigned as far in advance as possible. It 
might be well to select all these topics and assign them to 
members of the class at its first meeting, so that they can begin 
immediately to read and observe. In the event interracial 
action is contemplated it might be well at this first meeting to 
designate an interracial committee to get in touch with Negro 
leaders and with other organizations in the community which are 
interested in constructive work. 

The author is aware that many groups will have too short a 
time to devote a session to each chapter. For this reason the 
teacher is requested to study the interrelation of chapters so 
that they may be grouped logically. While the following plan 
provides only for superficial study it suggests a method of 
covering the book in eight sessions : 

Session I. Organization and assignment. Study Chapters 
IT and II. 

Session II. (Chapters. III and IV.) The chapters on Popula- 
tion and Health are related and involve the factors of birth, 
death, health, and movement. 

Session IIT. Chapters V and VI relate to the two aspects of 
the Negro’s economic life and can be discussed together. 

Session IV. Chapter VII is a most important chapter and if 
possible should be treated alone but could be combined with 
Chapter VIII, making a unit of law and government. 

Session V. Devote to Chapter VIII, if VIII and VII are not 
combined. 


APPENDIX 251 


Session VI. Education (Chapter IX) should by all means 
stand alone. 

Session VII. Chapters X and XI naturally combine as they 
relate to the spiritual and humanitarian sides of the problem. 


Session VIII. Chapter XII gives a good opportunity to 
review. 


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INDEX 


\ 
African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
beginnings, 216, 218; schools, 226 
African Methodist Episcopal Zion, 


21 

Apitation and leadership, 22-28 

Agriculture, 75-95; education for, 
189-193. See Farm 

Alabama, percentage of Negroes in, 
41-42; emigration from, 52; anti- 
lynching laws, 144; property in, 
152, 153; school funds, 178; early 
religious laws, 217 

Allen, Richard, 216, 218 

Almshouses, 156, 201 

Amalgamation, 3, 42-44, 237 

American Federation of Labor, 51 

Arkansas, percentage of Negroes in, 
41, 42; property in, 152, 153; 
school funds, 178 

Arrests. See Crime 

Asylums. See Insanity and Orphans 

Atlanta, Georgia, 34; community 
chest, 209; Christian Council in, 
232; riot in, 243 

Attucks, Crispus, 156, 158 

Augusta, Georgia, 34 


Baker, Ray Stannard, 243 

Banks, 120, 121, 122 

Banneker, Benjamin, 13 

Baptists: Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion, 143; beginnings, 216, 219; 
schools, 226 

Barbers, 119 

Beggars, 199 

Biology of race, 7-9 

Birth rate, 40-41, 53 

Black Belt, 41-42, 54, 179 

Bond issues, 4 

Brain weight, 172 


253 


Building trades. See Labor, skilled 
Bunker Hill, battle of, 156, 158 
Business, 119-123; retail, 120 
Business League, 123, 193 

Business men, 14, 21, 25 

Butler, General B. F., 159 


Calhoun, John, 170 

Carnegie Foundation, 135 

Carney, standard-bearer, 157 

Carolina, Locke’s Fundamental Con- 
stitutions, 215 

Carver, George W., 13, 28 

Charities, 200-202 

Charleston, South Carolina, 217 

Chattanooga, Tennessee, 34 

Chicago Commission on Race Rela- 
tions, 102, 106, 241-243 

Chicago, Illinois: School of Philan- 
thropy, 207; press, 241 

Childbirth, 59-60 

Child-placing. See Orphans 

Children of servants, tor. See 
Schools, Infant mortality, Juve- 
nile delinquency 

Christian Index, 142 

Christianity, 212-233 

Church, power of, 212; members, 
212; history, 213-218; opposi- 
tion to, 213-218; denominations, 
218-219; emotionalism, 220; fac- 
tionalism, 220; community cen- 
ters, 221-224; institutional fea- 
tures, 222; officials, 223; Sunday 
schools, 224; morality of mem- 
bers, 227-228; preachers, 228- 
230; codperation in, 230-233; 
segregation in, 237-238 

Church of God, 220 

Citizens, 149-152 


254 


City, population, 41; increase of 
migration to, 45, 49; effect of 
crowding in, 52-53 

Civil War, 159 

Code Noir, 215 

College graduates, 30, 171. See 
Schools 

Colored Methodist 
Church, 219, 226 

Commission on Interracial Coodpera- 
tion, 31-33, 101. See Interracial 
committees 

Community chests, 209 

Congregational Church of Atlanta, 
222; schools, 226 

Contacts, race, 235-247 

Coolidge, Calvin, 32-33 

Cooperation, 5-7, 12-18, 246-247; 
and leadership, 22-28. See Inter- 
racial committees 

Cotton, 46, 75 

Courts, 125, 134-136; juvenile, 133- 
134, 204 

Credits, 90-92 

Crime, in cities, 53; rates of, 126- 
127; causes of, 127-129; sen- 
tences for, 129-130; arrests for, 
130-132; reformation of, 132- 
134; and the press, 241-243 

Cultural differences, 8,10 


Episcopal 


Day nursery, Ior 

Daytona, Florida, 34 

Death, rate of, 40-41 ; economic loss 
from, 58; causes of, 58-63 

Demonstration agents. See Farm 
and Home demonstration agents 

Denominations, schools of, 195-198, 
225-227. See Church 

Dentists, 21, 110 

Dillard, James H., quoted, 169- 
170 

Disease. See Health 

Disfranchisement, 162-165 

Diversification of crops, 46, 49, 75- 
76, 86 

Doctors, 14, 21, 30; training of, 68- 


9 
Domestic animals, 80 
Domestic science, 100 


THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Domestic service, 99-102 

Dorsey, Governor Hugh M., 141 
Dublin, Dr. Louis I., 61 

DuBois, Dr. W. E. B., quoted, 88 
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 12 

Dyer bill, 139-141 


East St. Louis, Illinois, 243 

Editors. See Press 

Education, 169-198 

Educational Funds. See General 
Education Board, Jeanes, Phelps 
Stokes Fund, Rosenwald Fund, 
and Slater Fund 

Eliot, John, 215 

Emotion end religion, 212, 220 

Employment bureaus, 117-118 

Evans, M. S., quoted, 87 


Factions. See Leaders 

Family case work, 201-207 

Family morality, 205 

Farm : demonstration agents, 23, 64, 
93-94; movement from farm, 44, 
85, 98, 105; plantation system, 
45-48; laborers, 46, 48-50, 76, 
78, 813 owners, 77; renters, 77% 
tenancy, 77-85; size, 78; wages, 
82; loans, 90-92 

Federal. See National government 

Federal Council of Churches, 143, 
232 

Fee system, 130-131 

Feeble-minded, 128, 205-206 

Fisher, Isaac, 12; quoted, 35 

Fisk University, 207 

Florida: interracial committee, 33; 
percentage of Negroes, 41-42; 
anti-lynching law, 145; property, 
152-153; school funds, 178 

Folk music, 12 

Foreign-born, crime among, 126; 
insanity among, 205 


Gate City Free Kindergarten Asso- 
ciation, IoI 

General Education Board, 185, 187 

Georgia: interracial committee, 33- 
34; percentage of Negroes, 41- 
42; emigration, 44, 52; health 


INDEX 


department, 67; lynching, 141- 
142; property, 152-153; school 
funds, 178; early religious laws, 


217 

Gilpin, Charles, 12 

Golden Rule, 1 

Government, 149-168. See National 
government and State 

Gypsies, 3 


Hampton Institute, 69, 107, 191- 
193, 194 

Hayes, Roland, 12 

Health, 57-74 

Health Week, 66, 193 

Heredity. See Biology of race 

Home demonstration agents, 93-95 

Home-owners, 71 

Hospitals, 67-69 

Housing, 69-71 

Howard University, 69 


Illiteracy, 184-185 

Imes, G. Lake, quoted, 223 

Immigration, European, 115 

Impatience of leaders, 27-29 

Increase of population, 38-41 

Industrial education, 189-193 

Industry, 97-118. See Labor 

Infant mortality, 59-60, 62 

Insanity, 53, 205-206 

Insurance, 61, I19, 120, 121, 20I- 
202 

Intelligence tests. See Mental traits 

Interest rates, g1 

Interracial committees, 31-35, 66; 
effect of, on lynching, 143, 146 


Jackson, Andrew, quoted, 158 

Jackson, Stonewall, 218 

Jails, 132-133 

Jeanes Foundation, The Anna T., 
63, 170, 186 

Jefferson, Thomas, 170 

Jews, 3 

Jim Crow laws, 27, 236 

Jones, Thomas Jesse, 183 

Justice, 2. See Courts 

Juvenile courts. See Courts’ 

Juvenile delinquency, 133-134, 204 


255 


Kentucky: interracial committee, 
33; percentage of Negroes, 41; 
anti-lynching law, 145; property, 
153; voting, 163; school funds, 


17 
Kerlin, Robert T., quoted, 244 
Kindergarten, 1o1 


Labor: agents, 48, 117; skilled, 51, 
54,97, 109-112 ; foreignand Negro, 
51, 115-116; industrial, 97-118; 
distribution, 98, 110; women, 102- 
104; unskilled, 104-109. See Farm 

Labor unions, 111, 112-115 

Lake Erie, battle of, 158 

Landlords. See Agriculture and 
Real estate 

Law and order, 125-147 

Lawyers, 21, 110 

Leaders, 14, 20-37, 188-196 

Lee, Robert E., 218 

Legal aid, 33, 135 

Leonard Street Orphanage, 203 

Local leadership, 32 

Lodges, 201 

Louisiana, percentage of Negroes in, 
41-42; emigration from, 52; prop- 
erty in, 152-153; school ‘funds, 

178 

Louisville, Kentucky, 34 

L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 216 

Lynching, 136-147 


Macon County, Alabama, 223 

Marriages, 41, 53 

Maryland, 214 

Mather, Cotton,:215 

Medical schools. See Schools 

Meharry Medical College, 69 

Mental traits, 8, 10, 171-174 

Merchants, 120 

Methodists, Southern Women’s Mis- 
sionary Council, 33, 143; begin- 
nings of, 215, 216, 219; schools 
of, 226; preacher training of, 
231 

Midwives, 60 

Migration, 44-55, 76; effect of, on 
crime, 127 

Mill, John Stuart, 79 


256 


Mississipp1, percentage of Negroes 
in, 41-42; emigration from, 52; 
Delta farming in, 82-83; prop- 
erty in, 152-153; school funds, 
178 

Mixture of races, 9. See Amalga- 
mation 

Mob. See Lynching 

Moravians, 215 

Morrel Federal Fund, 189 3 


Moton, Robert R., 28; quoted, 240 


Mulattoes, 42-44 

Murphy, Edgar Gardner, quoted, 1, 
14, 164 

Mutual acquaintance, 13-16, 31 

Mutual confidence, 16-17 

Mutual interest, 17-18 


Nashville, Tennessee, 34 

National government, Bureau of 
Farm Management, 82; farm 
loans, 91; and peonage, 93; De- 
partment of Labor, 102, 117, 118; 
and lynching, 139-141; and race 
problems, 246 

National Negro Business League, 123 

New Orleans, Louisiana, 34; battle 
of, 158 

Newspapers. See Press 

New York School of Social Work, 
207 

Normal schools. See Schools 

North Carolina, percentage of Ne- 
groes in, 41-42; emigration from, 
52; health department, 67; prop- 
erty in, 152-153; voting in, 163; 
school funds, 178 

Nurses, 21, 33, 65-67 

Occupations. See Agriculture and 
Labor 

Oglethorpe, Governor, 215 

Oklahoma, property in, 152-153; 
voting in, 163; schoohfunds, 178 

Omaha, Nebraska, riot, 243 

Orphans, 202-203 


Paternalism, 7, 20, 199 
Patriots, 1 56-161 
Peonage, 92 


THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Pershing, John J., 161 

Phelps Stokes Fund, 188 

Philanthropy, 31-36 

Physical traits, 7-9 

Plantation. See Farm 

Playgrounds, 72 

Pneumonia, 53, 59, 62 

Poise of leaders, 29 

Police, 130-132 

Politics. See Voting 

Population, 38-55 

Preachers, 14, 21, 25; number, 228; 
salary, 229; training, 229-231; 
institutes, 231 

Prejudice, 4, 13, 15; derived from 
domestic servants, 99; in in- 
dustry, 101; of foremen, 106; in 
labor unions, 112-113; in busi- 
ness, 119-120 

Presbyterians, 219, 225, 226 

Press, 21, 241 

Probation, 134 

Professions, 14, 21, 25, 97, 110 

Property. See Taxation 

Protestant Episcopal, 219 

Public appropriations, 154-156. See 
Schools 

Public health. See Health 

Public institutions, 154-155. See 
Almshouses, Hospitals, Insanity, 
Orphans, Reform schools, Schools, 
and State 

Public opinion among Negroes, rs. 
See Press 

Public schools. See Schools, public 

Racial differences, 7-12 

Railways. See Segregation 

Real estate, 71, 120, 121, 122 

Records broken, 111, 159 

Recreation, 71-72 

Reform schools, 33, 133-134, 156, 204 

Reformation. See Crime 

Relief, 200-202 

Religion. See Church 

Revolutionary War, 156-159 

Rhode Island, battle of, 158 

Riots, caused by unemployment, 
115; strikes, 137-138; race, 137, 
138, 139; and the press, 242-243 


INDEX 


Roman Catholic, 219 
Rosenwald, Julius, 73, 187 
Rosenwald Fund, 50, 170, 187 
Rural institutions, 46, 62 
Rural population, 41 


Salem, Peter, 156 

Sanitary inspection, 70 

Savannah, Georgia, 34; battle of, 158 

Schools, medical, 30; normal, 30; 
theological, 30; private, 193-198, 
225-227; professional, 195; for 
social workers, 207. See Schools, 
public 

Schools, public: development, 21, 
176; improvement, 50, 169, 177- 
179, 185-188 ; appropriations, 155 ; 
comparative expenditures, 177- 
179; buildings, 180; term, 180- 
181; attendance, 181; teachers, 
181; county training, 182; high 
schools, 182-183 ; supervision, 183, 
185 

Segregation, 236 

Selfishness of leaders, 29-30 

Sex ratio, 53 

Slater Fund, 170, 186 

Slave trade, 35, 214 

Slavery, 7, 20, 35, 99 

Smith-Hughes Act, 190 

Social equality, 26-27 

Social work, 207. See Probation and 
Family case work 

Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, 215 

Soldiers. See Patriots 

South Carolina: interracial com- 
mittee, 33; percentage of Negroes, 
41-42; emigration, 52; health de- 
partment, 67; anti-lynching laws, 
144; property, 152-153; school 
funds, 178; early religious laws, 
217; slave revolt, 217 

Special abilities, 5, 12, 13 

Standard of living, 107 

Standards of leaders, 30 

State : departments of health, 66 ; su- 
pervisors of schools, 185; schools, 
188-191. See individual states 

Strikes, 113 


257 


Sunday school, 224 
Superiority, 11, 12 


Talladega College, 69, 194 

Tanner, H. O., 12 

Taxation, 4, 152-156 

Teachers, 14, 21, 25 

Tenancy, extent, 77; evils, 79-80; 
share, 80, 82; profits, 82-83; in- 
crease, 84; contracts, 87-90; in 
England, 89 

Tennessee: interracial committee, 
33-343; percentage of Negroes, 41; 
emigration, 52; anti-lynching 
laws, 145; property, 153; vot- 
ing, 163; school funds, 178 

Testimony, unreliability of, 136 

Texas: percentage of Negroes in, 
41-42; property in, 153; school 
funds, 178 

Theological schools, 30 

Toussaint L’Ouverture. 
verture, Toussaint 

Trades. See Labor 

Tradition, 212, 213, 227 

Tuberculosis: death rate, 53, 50- 
60, 61-62; National Tuberculosis 
Association, 65; state nurse, 67; 
sanitaria, 67 

Turner, Nat, 217 

Tuskegee Institute, 21, 69, 107, I91- 


193 


See L’Ou- 


Uncle Remus, 12 

Unions. See Labor 

United Brethren, 215 

United States. See National govern- 
ment 

Urban League, National, 118 

Urbanization. See City 


Venereal disease, 41, 61 

Vesey, Denmark, 217 

Violence, 49-50 

Virginia, percentage of Negroes in, 
41-42; emigration from, 52; prop- 
erty in, 152-153; voting in, 163; 
school funds, 178; religious laws, 
215, 217; slave revolt, 217 

Voting, 26, 150-151, 162-167 


258 


Washington, Booker T., quoted, 3, 
57; and leadership, 21; and labor, 
107, 109, III, 123; and education, 
IQI-193 

Washington, D.C., riot, 243 

Washington, George, 158 

Weatherford, W. D., quoted, 231 

Welfare, social, 199-211 

Wesley, John, 215 

White leadership, 30-36 

Whitfield, Governor H. L., quoted, 
236 

Wilcox, Walter F., 39, 

Williams, Bert, 12 


THE BASIS OF RACIAL ADJUSTMENT 


Williams, G. Croft, quoted, 132-133 

Women, in domestic service, 99-102 ; 
in industry, 102-104; and lynch- 
ing, 143 

Wood, General Leonard, 243 

Woodworth, R. S., 171 


World War, 159-161 


Yerkes, Robert M., 172 
YiMiGs A.) 72-73 
Y. W. C.A., 72-73 


Zinzendorf, Count, 215 


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